MEMORIAL 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER, 


NEW    YORK: 

JOHN    H.    KNIGHT,    PUBLISHER 
1887. 


Kntered  according  to  Art  of  Congress  in  the  year  1887,  by- 
John  II.   kni-ht, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


1'KI'SS    OF 

\\'.     SON  X  K  I!  OR  N  , 
8  &  10  WAKREN  ST., 
NEW  YORK. 


PREFACE. 

IT  would  be  impossible,  even  in  a  volume  ten 
times  this  size,  to  do  anything  like  justice  to 
the  remarkable  qualities  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
No  one  feels  this  more  than  the  compiler,  who 
for  twenty  years  has  been  one  of  his  most  ardent 
admirers  and  a  constant  attendant  upon  his  pub- 
lic ministrations. 

Space  does  not  permit  much  detail,  and  so 
only  the  more  prominent  scenes  in  his  life  are 
portrayed,  as  a  collection  of  paragraphs  from 
his  public  utterances  takes  up  the  greater  por- 
tion of  the  work.  It  has  been  felt  that  these 
gems  will,  better  than  anything  that  could  be 
written,  illustrate  his  wide  and  original  range  of 
thought. 

The  great  man  has  gone,  but  while  perusing 
these  paragraphs  the  reader  may  again  stand 
face  to  face  with  him  and  feel  the  influence  of 


2012347 


his  master  mind.  The  love  of  humanity  which 
was  the  controlling  force  of  "his  life  ;  the  orig- 
inality of  thought  for  which  he  was  so  widely 
known  ;  his  touching  pathos,  his  quaint  and  tell- 
ing humor,  his  deep  insight  into  human  nature, 
and  his  almost  universal  knowledge,  are  each  and 
all  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  paragraphs  select- 
ed. If  ever  it  was  true  of  man  it  is  pre-eminently 
so  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  that  *'  He  being 
dead  yet  speakcth." 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

His  Father. 

NEVER  was  there  a  better  illustration  of  the 
power  of  hereditary  tendencies  than  that 
furnished  by  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  In  his  well 
known  eccentricities  he  was  a  feeble  reproduc- 
tion of  his  venerable  father,  who  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  kept  himself  and  his  denomina- 
tion in  hot  water  by  deeds  and  utterances  quite 
as  sensational  and  bewildering  as  any  recorded 
of  his  illustrious  son. 

Fifty  years  ago  Lyman  Beecher  ranked  among 
the  first  of  living  pulpit  orators,  and  in  his  own 
country  was  without  a  rival.  He  was  of  all  men 
most  fervid  in  illustration,  most  fertile  in  graphic 
delineation,  most  effective  in  utterance.  Though 
the  last  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  Brooklyn, 
in  which  city  he  died  twenty  years  ago,  and 
though  he  attained  to  his  chief  distinction  and 
career  of  usefulness  in  Ohio,  it  was  in  New  Eng- 
land that  he  was  born  and  reared  and  that  he 
reached  his  first  national  fame.  His  ancestors 
5 


were  among  the  earliest  people  who  settled  in 
New  England.  He  could  trace  his  line  directly 
back  to  a  widow,  Hannah  Beecher,  who  settled 
in  New  Haven  in  1638,  eighteen  years  after  the 
landing  of  the  Pilgrims.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
Yale  College,  and  he  acquired  in  that  institution 
an  unusual  reputation  for  fine  speaking.  Be- 
yond the  section  of  New  England  in  which  he 
preached  his  fame  at  the  start  spread  slowly,  and 
it  was  not  until  1804,  when  he  was  nearly  thirty 
years  of  age,  that  an  opportunity  came  for  him 
to  be  heard  by  the  public  at  large.  In  that  year 
he  preached  a  sermon  on  the  death  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  which  drew  to  him  the  eyes  of  half 
the  Nation.  It  was  a  truly  great  sermon  for  so 
young  a  man,  and  when  some  years  later  he  gave 
his  heart  and  genius  to  the  temperance  cause  six 
of  the  sermons  that  he  preached  touched  the 
high-water  marks  of  his  unrivaled  eloquence. 
Many  anecdotes  are  on  record  of  Lyman  Beech- 
er's  eccentricities.  He  was  a  proverbially  ab- 
sent-minded man,  and  when  he  had  finished 
preaching  the  excitement  to  which  his  system 
had  been  wrought  required  to  be  reduced  in 
peculiar  ways.  He  was  accustomed  at  times  to 
let  himself  down  by  playing  '"'  Auld  Lang  Syne  " 
on  the  violin  and  by  vigorous  dancing  in  the 
parlor  when  he  reached  home.  He  was  three 
times  married,  and  became  the  father  of  thirteen 
children,  eleven  of  whom  in  1872  were  still 
living. 

6 


His  Mother. 

Roxana  Foote  was  descended  from  Andrew 
Ward,  who  came  to  New  Haven  in  the  same  year 
with  Hannah  Beecher,  and  she  was  married  to 
Lyman  Beecher  in  1799.  Seven  children  had 
already  been  born  to  Lyman  and  Roxana 
Beecher  when,  at  Litchfield,  Conn.,  on  June  24, 
1813,  was  born  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  The 
father's  house  at  Litchfield  was  a  plain  but  sub-  . 
stantial  dwelling,  characteristic  of  its  State, 
standing  in  a  broad  inclosure  upon  a  wide  and 
grass-grown  street  and  surrounded  by  tall  and 
spreading  elm  trees.  Litchfield  was  a  mountain 
town  where  the  Winters  were  long  and  severe, 
and  the  snowdrifts  frequent  and  of  great  size. 
Here  were  passed  twelve  years  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher's  life.  Nature  with  her  giant  winds, 
and  storms  of  sleet  and  ice,  gave  him  a  rugged 
nursing,  and  the  step-mother  that  came  to  him 
in  a  few  years  was  also  severe,  though  of  good 
intentions  and  thoroughly  devoted  to  the  welfare 
of  Lyman  Beecher's  children.  His  own  mother 
survived  Henry's  birth  only  three  years.  She 
was  a  woman  of  the  widest  range  of  sympathy, 
gentle  and  tender  to  her  children,  and  of  a  rest- 
ful and  serene  temperament,  which  no  worldly 
vexations  could  disturb.  Henry's  early  impres- 
sion of  her  was  that  she  was  "  the  law  of  purity 
and  the  law  of  honor."  He  was  too  young  to 
attend  her  funeral.  Mrs.  Stowe  remembers  his 
golden  curls  of  that  day  and  the  little  black 
9 


frock  that  he  wore  "as  he  frolicked  like  a  kitten 
in  the  sun,  in  ignorant  joy."  When  they  had 
told  him  his  mother  had  been  buried  in  the 
ground,  and  that  she  had  gone  to  heaven,  he 
was  found  one  morning  digging  with  great  zeal 
beneath  his  sister  Catherine's  window,  being  in- 
tent, as  he  said,  on  going  to  heaven  to  find  his 
mother. 

Early  Education. 

His  first  school  days  were  spent  at  n  small  es- 
tablishment kept  by  a  Widow  Kilbourn,  where 
he  was  taught  to  recite  the  alphabet  twice  a  day. 
He  was  then  taught  arithmetic  and  writing,  and 
disciplined  in  readings  from  the  Bible  and  the 
"Columbian  Orator"  at  the  public  school,  from 
which,  at  the  age  of  ten,  he  was  removed  to  a 
private  school  in  the  town  of  Bethlehem,  near 
Litchfield,  where,  however,  he  was  allowed  to 
roam  much  at  will  among  fields  and  woods,  his 
writing  meanwhile  being  bad,  his  spelling  worse. 
He  showed  great  deficiency  in  verbal  memory, 
was  unusually  bashful  for  a  boy  and  this  had 
retarded  his  progress. 

At  the  age  of  twelve  years  his  environment 
was  completely  changed  by  the  removal  of  his 
father  to  Boston.  While  in  that  city  he  became 
prone  to  melancholy,  was  restless  and  irritable, 
and,  from  reading  lives  of  Nelson  and  Capt. 
Cook,  acquired  an  unconquerable  desire  to  go  to 
sea.  The  restraint  of  life  in  the  city,  surrounded 
by  high  walls  and  confined  for  his  sport  to  nar- 
10 


row  streets,  depressed  his  mind  and  distracted 
his  feeling,  so  that  in  after-years  he  believed 
that,  had  not  a  change  occurred,  he  would  have 
gone  to  destruction.  His  father,  well  aware  of 
his  sea-going  ambitions,  shrewdly  suggested  that 
he  first  take  a  course  in  mathematics  and  navi- 
gation— a  proposition  to  which  the  young  man 
gladly  acceded.  He  accordingly  departed  for 
the  Mount  Pleasant  school  at  Amherst,  where 
was  soon  recorded  of  him  good  progress  in 
mathematics  and  greater  clearness  of  utterance. 
At  the  end  of  a  year  he  had  entirely  given  up 
his  former  longing  for  the  sea,  had  united  with 
his  father's  church  in  Boston,  and  aspired  to 
follow  his  father's  footsteps  as  a  minister  of  the 
Gospel. 

He  Enters  College. 

Aside  from  the  rude  teachings  of  a  country 
school,  Henry  learned  all  he  knew  until  he  en- 
tered Amherst  College  in  1830,  when  he  was 
seventeen  years  old,  at  home.  His  father's 
house  was  the  headquarters  of  theological  dis- 
putation, and  many  a  battle  was  waged  across 
the  hospitable  board,  while  the  big  eyed  chil- 
dren listened  to  that  which  no  one  could  explain. 
Modest  and  retiring  in  his  manner,  Henry  list- 
ened attentively  to  the  teachings  of  his  step- 
mother, but  the  one  result  in  those  days  was  to 
plant  the  seed  of  wonder  and  inquisitiveness, 
which  grew  up  and  bore  Marvellous  fruit  in  later 
days.  A  brief  period  in  the  Boston  Latin  School 
11 


prepared  Henry  Ward  for  college,  and  he  en- 
tered without  trouble.  The  obtainable  record 
of  his  experience  there  does  not  show  brilliantly 
nor  compare  favorably  with  that  of  scores  of 
men  who  have  lived  unnoticed  and  died  unsung. 
In  mathematics  alone  he  was  proficient,  a  fact 
which  stands  out  clearly  and  strangely  when  it 
is  remembered  that  in  later  life  he  was  a  perfect 
child  in  figures,  and  could  never  keep  the  sim- 
plest account  with  any  degree  of  accuracy.  In 
public  references  to  these  days  of  education  Mr. 
Beecher  often  said  that  he  owed  his  inspiration 
for  manly  living  to  three  persons — his  dead 
mother,  whose  spirit  seemed  ever  near  him  as  a 
guardian  angel;  a  negro  servant  who  chopped 
wood  and  sung  hymns  in  his  father's  shed,  and 
the  professor  of  mathematics  in  Amherst  Col- 
lege. He  did  not  study  hard  in  college.  He 
much  preferred  the  excitement  of  debates,  the 
cheer  of  the  river  through  the  meadows,  the 
singing  of  birds  and  the  outdoor  sports  in  which 
he  was  an  adept.  That  he  was  a  natural  born 
orator  is  unquestioned,  but  his  shyness  so  thor- 
oughly controlled  him  that  when  a  student  for  a 
brief  time  in  Mount  Pleasant,  just  before  he  en- 
tered college,  his  teacher  was  compelled  to  rea- 
son, plead  and  almost  use  force  with  him  to 
induce  him  to  "speak  a  piece"  in  the  presence 
of  his  fellows.  Gradually  that  bashfulness  wore 
away,  and  when  he  entered  college  he  brought 
the  reputation  of  a  ready  and  graceful  speaker. 
18 


At  that  early  age  he  had  acquired  a  taste  fur 
physical  and  physiological  science.  He  was 
fond  of  reading  in  a  desultory  way,  and  although 
his  habits  were  not  formed  and  his  tastes  were 
crude,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  classic  writ- 
eis  whose  sturdy  and  vigorous  English  was  to 
him  at  once  an  object  of  admiration  and  a  lesson. 

After  leaving  Amherst  College,  which  he  did 
without  any  marked  honors  or  reputation — save 
that  of  a  jolly  good  fellow,  a  choice  companion 
and  the  chief  in  the  debating  societies — -Beecher 
entered  Lane  Seminary,  near  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
where  his  venerated  father  was  president — then 
the  battlefield  whereon  the  Presbyterians  of  the 
old  and  new  schools  were  fighting  fiercely.  Dr. 
Lyman  Beccher's  heart  was  in  the  war  and  he 
waged  it  incessantly  and  with  characteristic 
vigor.  That  any  son  of  his  should  be  anything 
but  a  minister  never  entered  the  old  gentleman's 
mind.  All  his  sons  were  brought  up  with  the 
knowledge  that  they  were  foreordained  to  be 
clergymen,  and  although  two  of  them,  Henry 
and  James,  had  for  a  time  other  views  of  life, 
chey  eventually  joined  hands  with  the  rest. 

In  the  seminary  Henry  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  the  faculty  and  his  fellow  students  by 
his  oratorical  excellence.  His  father  was  sur- 
prised that  he  took  so  little  interest  in  the  battle 
of  the  Presbyterians,  and  looked  with  some 
doubt  on  the  future  usefulness  of  his  son.  Nev- 
ertheless, he  was  proud  of  his  abilities  and  did 
10 


all  he  could  to  ground  him  in  the  faith  of  his 
fathers.  This  was  a  difficult  task,  and  caused 
the  old  gentleman  many  an  anxious  night,  for  to 
him  the  doctrines  were  firm  and  steadfast,  and 
any  questioning  that  tended  to  unsettle  them,  or 
any  one  of  them,  was  heresy  a  little  less  than 
blasphemy. 

First  Pastorate. 

In  1837,  when  he  was  twenty-four  years  of 
age,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  became  the  pastor  of 
an  independent  Presbyterian  Church  in  Law- 
renceburg,  Ind.  He  had  previously  met,  wooed, 
won  and  married  Miss  Eunice  Bullard,  a  daugh- 
ter of  Rev.  Dr.  Bullard,  a  lady  slightly  older 
than  himself.  Miss  Bullard  was  well  born  and 
bred,  as  the  children  of  Presbyterian  clergymen 
generally  are.  To  an  unusually  acute  wit  she 
united  physical  and  emotional  power  of  rare  de- 
velopment. Her  energetic  nature  was  a  needed 
complement  to  the  careless  dreaminess  of  the 
young  preacher,  and  in  his  early  life  she  was  the 
spur  and  directer  of  all  his  affairs.  Like  his 
father,  too,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  a  man  of 
marked  domestic  habit.  He  was  the  father  of 
eight  children — Henry  Barton,  Harriet  B.  Sco- 
ville,  William  Constantine,  Herbert,  Arthur 
Howard,  Alfred  Bowen,  Kate  and  George. 

In  the  two  years  of  his  Lawrenceburg  pastor- 
ate Mr.  Beecher  made  his  mark.  As  a  preacher 
he  was  eloquent;  as  an  orthodox  teacher  he  was 

u 


not  over  zealous;  as  a  sympathizing  pastor  he 
was  of  average  merit  only.  His  meetings  were 
\yell  attended  and  he  made  himself  felt.  His 
personal  magnetism  was  great,  the  flush  of  vig- 
orous health  was  in  his  veins,  and  he  stirred  up 
the  dry  bones  of  his  neighborhood  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  the  attention  of  a  wider  circle  was  at- 
tracted, and  he  was  called  to  take  charge  of  a 
similar  church  in  Indianapolis,  the  capital  of  the 
State. 

Early  Struggles. 

In  Indianapolis  young  Beecher  made  friends 
in  several  new  circles.  His  church  was  small 
and  his  ministrations  at  first  were  held  in  a  room 
in  the  second  story  of  the  Town  Academy.  As 
the  son  of  Lyman  Beecher  he  was  accorded  a 
courteous  Avelcome,  but  it  was  not  long  ere  he 
was  esteemed  and  followed  for  his  individual 
merit.  Here,  too,  in  a  sense  he  began  to  live. 
Hitherto  he  had  been  little  better  than  a  home 
missionary,  and  indeed  he  was  for  some  time  a 
beneficiary  on  the  books  of  the  Home  Mission- 
ary Society.  His  entire  income  was  less  than 
$300  nominally,  and  part  of  that  was  paid  in 
corn,  potatoes  and  other  products  of  the  soil. 
When  he  needed  a  house  to  live  in  he  hauled 
the  logs  himself.  His  neighbors  aided  him  to 
put  it  up.  The  whitewash  and  paint  he  attended 
to  himself.  The  rapidity  with  which  his  chil- 
dren followed  each  other  and  the  malarial  con- 
15 


dition  of  the  section  in  which  he  lived  broke 
down  the  strong  constitution  of  his  faithful  wife, 
and  as  they  were  unable  to  pay  a  servant  t^rew 
on  him  the  domestic  drudgery.  He  chopped 
the  wood,  drew  the  water,  peeled  the  potatoes, 
cooked  the  food,  served  it,  washed  the  dishes 
and  cleaned  up  the  house.  When  sickness  neces- 
sitated frequent  washings  of  soiled  clothes  it  was 
he  who  did  the  work.  Part  of  the  time  he  did 
double  duty  and  rode  twenty  miles  through  the 
woods  and  across  the  prairies  to  the  log  school- 
house  in  which  service  was  held,  preached,  rode 
back  again,  cooked  the  dinner,  preached  in  his 
own  church,  returned  to  nurse  his  sick  wife  and 
attend  to  the  children,  got  the  supper  and  spent 
the  evening  in  the  prayer  meeting.  At  times  he 
was  so  poor  that  an  unpaid  letter,  on  which 
eighteen  or  twenty  cents  were  due,  remained  in 
the  post  office,  with  news  from  the  East,  un- 
called for  because  he  did  not  have  the  money 
with  which  to  pay  the  postage. 

Poi'crty  and  Sympathy. 

Added  to  the  poverty  of  his  pocket,  the  inces- 
sant drain  of  his  sympathy  at  home,  the  contin- 
uous necessity  of  physical  toil  in  the  house,  the 
garden  and  the  woodshed,  and  the  preparation 
of  his  sermons,  was  a  doubt,  an  uncertainty  in 
his  beliefs.  The  little  cloud  small  as  a  man's 
hand,  that  frightened  him  when  a  boy,  made  him 
gloomy  when  in  college  and  shadowed  him  in  his 
16 


first  charge,  now  assumed  vast  proportions.  He 
was  all  afloat.  All  that  kept  him  from  sinking — 
humanly  speaking — was  his  own  honest  expres- 
sion of  doubt.  Had  he  kept  it  to  himself  and 
brooded  over  it  in  secret  he  might  have  been 
carried  over  the  falls  of  infidelity  or  gone  to  the 
fool's  refuge — suicide.  But  Beecher  was  then 
as  always,  open-mouthed.  What  he  felt, 
thought  or  knew  he  told  Secretiveness  was 
never  fairly  developed  in  his  nature.  He  never 
could  keep  a  secret.  He  made  friends  easily, 
and  the  last  person  with  him  invariably  knew 
his  mind.  He  was  easily  deceived,  for,  although 
he  had  constant  experience  in  human  strengths 
and  human  weaknesses,  he  was  by  nature  con- 
fiding and  trustful.  Truthful  himself,  it  was 
next  to  impossible  to  persuade  him  that  any  one 
would  be  false  in  speech  or  inference  to  him. 
He  knew  all  about  wickedness  in  general,  but 
special  cases  bothered  him.  When  doubts  as- 
sailed him  instead  of  taking  them  to  his  study 
he  used  them  as  illustrations  in  the  pulpit.  If 
he  questioned  the  possibility  of  forgiveness  of 
sin  he  became  the  example.  It  was  his  breast 
that  he  beat,  his  doubt  he  asserted,  his  fears  he 
expressed.  In  picturing  the  estate  of  a  lost  soul 
the  imagery  lost  nothing  of  its  power  by  a  per- 
sonal application.  Enthusiastic  in  everything, 
from  the  culture  of  a  flower  to  the  worship  of 
his  Saviour,  Mr.  Beecher  carried  his  zealous 
search  for  remedies  in  this  state  of  doubt  to  the 
17 


extremity  of  his  passionate  nature.  Crowds  at- 
tended his  preaching.  Waves  of  religious  feel- 
ing carried  all  classes  of  people  before  them. 
The  State  of  Indiana  was  in  an  uproar.  The 
Presbyterian  churches  looked  on  amazed.  Dr. 
Lyman  Beecher  thanked  God  that  he  had  given 
him  such  a  son,  and  in  the  same  breath  be- 
seeched  Him  to  guide  him,  lest  he  should  fall. 
The  Legislature  sat  in  Indianapolis,  and  in  its 
train  followed  the  evils  that  generally  accom- 
pany the  camp  followers.  Intemperance,  gamb- 
ling and  kindred  vices  were  rampant  in  the  place. 
Everybody  knew  it.  The  sores  affected  the  en- 
tire body  politic.  The  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture knew  it  as  well  as  the  rest,  and  winked  at  it 
like  the  rest.  This  seemed  to  Beecher  a  fair 
target.  He  announced  a  series  of  lectures  to 
young  men  and  delivered  them  in  his  church. 
The  feeling  engendered  by  them  was  intense. 
Those  who  were  hit  were  indignant.  All  classes 
went  to  hear  them,  and  before  they  were  con- 
cluded a  revival  arose  that  swept  the  city. 

His  Peculiar  Gifts. 

He  was  not  the  ideal  parson.  He  wore  no 
distinctive  garb.  His  face  was  round  and  jolly. 
His  eye  was  full  of  laughter.  His  manner  was 
hearty  and  his  interest  sincere.  It  was  often 
said  that  Beecher  could  have  attained  any  de- 
sired distinction  at  the  bar  or  in  politics.  Ik- 
was  importuned  to  stand  as  candidate  for  legis- 
18 


lative  honors,  but  invariably  refused  even  to 
think  of  it.  At  this  time,  when  he  regarded 
himself  spiritually  weak,  he  was  eloquently 
strong.  He  preached  without  notes  and  talked 
as  if  inspired.  His  prayers  were  poems.  His 
illustrations  were  constant  and  always  changing. 
He  kept  his  people  wide  awake  and  made  them 
feel  his  earnestness.  His  acting  power  was  mar- 
vellous. Those  who  knew  him  well  will  remem- 
ber that  when  talking  he  could  with  difficulty 
sit  still.  He  almost  invariably  rose,  and  in  the 
excitement  of  description  or  argument  acted  the 
entire  subject  as  it  struck  him.  Oftentimes  in 
his  most  solemn  moments  an  illustration  or  an 
odd  expression  would  escape  him  that  sent  a 
laugh  from  pew  to  pew.  Waking  suddenly  to 
the  incongruity  of  the  scene  and  the  subject,  it 
almost  seemed  as  if  the  rebuking  spirit  of  his 
dead  mother  stood  before  him,  for  with  a  man- 
ner that  carried  the  sympathy  of  the  audience 
he  would  drift  into  a  channel  tender  and  deep 
and  full  of  tears,  along  which  the  feelings  of  his 
people  were  irresistibly  borne.  There,  as  through- 
out life,  the  chief  topics  of  his  repertory  were  the 
love  of  God  and  the  dignity  of  man.  He  rarely 
preached  from  the  Old  Testament.  The  thun- 
ders of  Sinai  and  the  flames  of  hell  had  no 
power  over  him.  It  would  puzzle  an  expert  to 
find  in  all  his  published  sermons — and  for  more 
than  a  generation  every  word  he  spoke  was  re- 
ported as  he  spoke  it — a  sentence  of  which 
19 


threats  or  fears  were  the  dominant  spirit.  He 
preached  the  love  of  God  and  the  sympathy  of 
Christ  first,  last  and  all  the  time. 

He  Visits  Brooklyn. 

In  1847  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  thirty-four 
years  old.  Mentally  he  had  become  broader  and 
looked  over  \vider  fields  than  when  he  began  to 
labor.  Morally  he  was  as  sincere,  as  truthful 
and  as  ingenuous  as  when  he  opened  his  big  blue 
eyes  with  astonishment  at  the  Bible  stories  he 
heard  at  "Aunt  Esther's"  knee.  Physically  he 
was  a  picture  of  vigorous  health.  He  stood 
about  five  feet  eight  inches  high.  His  large, 
well  formed,  well  developed  head  sat  defiantly 
on  a  short,  red  neck,  that  grew  from  a  sturdy 
frame,  rampant  and  lusty  in  nerve  and  fibre  and 
blood  and  muscle.  He  had  no  money,  owned 
no  real  estate.  His  capital  was  in  his  brains,  and 
they  needed  the  culture  procurable  in  the  me- 
tropolis alone,  where  libraries  and  book  stores, 
art  galleries  and  men  of  thought  were  to  be  met 
at  every  turn.  A  career  in  the  East  was  far  from 
Beecher's  thoughts,  and  yet  his  sick  wife  seemed 
to  need  a  medicament  not  to  be  found  in  the 
West.  Among  the  many  merchants  who  from 
time  to  time  returned  to  their  New  York  homes 
to  report  th-2  singular  sayings  and  Pauline 
preachings  of  the  Western  orator  was  one  who 
lived  in  Brooklyn  and  had  incidentally  learned 
that  two  or  three  members  of  the  Pilgrim  Church 
20 


were  contemplating  a  second  Congregational 
Church  in  that  city.  To  them  he  communicated 
his  impressions  of  the  man  he  had  heard  in  In- 
dianapolis, and  advised  them  to  send  for  him. 
The  step  seemed  risky,  for  even  then  Brooklyn 
was  known  as  the  City  of  Churches,  and  men  of 
mark  in  divers  denominations  were  drawing 
audiences  to  their  feet. 

Among  others  at  that  time  were  Dr.  Bethune, 
of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church;  Dr.  Constan- 
tine  Pise,  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church;  Dr. 
R.  S.  Storrs,  Jr.,  of  the  Congregational  Church; 
Dr.  T.  L.  Cuyler,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
a\\d  facile  princeps  Dr.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  of 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  one  of  the  oldest 
organizations  in  the  country.  Obviously  to 
bring  an  untried  man  to  a  place  like  Brooklyn 
was  venturesome,  to  say  the  least.  So  it  was  ar- 
ranged that  Mr.  Beecher  should  be  invited  to 
come  East  for  the  purpose  of  addressing  the 
Home  Missionary  Society,  which  was  shortly  to 
celebrate  an  anniversary,  and  that  then  the 
Brooklyn  church  should  ask  him  over  to  fill  its 
pulpit  one  or  more  Sundays.  The  plan  worked 
like  a  charm.  Mrs.  Beecher  was  overjoyed  at 
the  prospect  of  a  trip  that  might  benefit  her 
health  and  enable  her  to  see  her  Eastern  rela- 
tives and  friends,  and  Mr.  Beecher  was  more 
than  glad  of  anything  that  would  relieve  the  mo- 
notony of  a  sick  room  and  bring  him  in  contact 
with  a  side  of  the  world  that  was  as  truly  Greek 


to  him  as — well,  as  Greek  itself.  With  scanty 
wardrobe,  old-fashioned  and  rusty  at  that,  the 
couple  started  Eastward.  The  difference  in 
their  appearance  may  be  inferred  from  a  remark 
made  by  an  old  lady  on  the  cars.  Mr.  Beecher 
had  jumped  from  the  train  to  the  platform  at 
one  of  the  stations  to  get  "  Ma,"  as  he  always 
called  his  wife,  a  sandwich.  "  Ma  "  sat  gloomy 
and  sad  faced,  and  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
old  lady,  who  approached  her  and  said,  sympa- 
thizingly,  "  Cheer  up,  my  dear  madam,  cheer 
up.  Surely,  whatever  may  be  your  'trial,  you 
have  cause  for  great  thankfulness  to  God,  who 
has  given  you  such  a  kind  and  attentive  son." 
That  settled  Mrs,  Beecher  for  the  remainder  of 
the  journey,  and  made  her  cup  of  misery  more 
than  full.  However,  though  the  lady  knew  it 
not,  she  was  rapidly  nearing  the  haven  in  which 
she  was  to  find  a  glowing  welcome,  reinvigora- 
tion  of  mind  and  body  and  an  anchorage  of 
safety  for  life. 

From  the  moment  in  which  he  opened  his  lips 
in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  his  success  was  as- 
sured. In  those  days  "Anniversary  Week  "  was 
an  institution.  The  great  men  of  the  nation 
spoke  from  their  platforms.  The  evangelical 
expeditions  against  the  heathen,  intemperance 
and  slavery  were  organized,  equipped  and  start- 
ed then  and  there.  Each  year  the  respective 
advocates  returned  with  their  reports.  The 
Tabernacle  was  always  crowded,  and  some  of 
23 


PLYMOUTH  CHURCH,  1WOOKLYN.JN.|Y, 


the  best  thoughts  of  the  churches'  best  men  were 
uttered  in  speeches  from  that  pulpit.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  per  se,  was  unknown;  but  his 
father  and  his  elder  brother  and  sister  were 
known  to  every  one  at  all  familiar  with  affairs. 
Consequently,  when  the  sturdy  son  of  Lyman 
Beecher  rose  to  speak  he  was  greeted  by  a 
friendly  audience,  and  soon  found  himself  at 
home,  although  his  garb  was  not  in  accordance 
with  that  of  his  fashionable  hearers. 

Called  to  Plymouth  Church. 
The  ground  upon  which  Plymouth  Church 
now  stands  and  which  already  contained  an  edi- 
fice of  worship,  was  purchased  in  June,  184G, 
for  $20,000.  Henry  C.  Bowen,  Seth  B.  Hunt, 
John  T.  Howard,  and  David  Hale,  the  first  three 
being  members  of  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims, 
iurnished  $9,500,  which  sum  was  paid  outright, 
a  mortgage  being  given  for  the  remainder.  Pos- 
session was  given  May  16,  1847,  which  was  the 
Sunday  morning  on  which  Mr.  Beecher  preached 
his  first  sermon  in  the  Plymouth  pulpit.  He  was 
quite  innocent  of  any  knowledge  that  he  was 
ever  to  become  part  and  parcel  of  it.  His  heart 
was  in  the  West,  and  he  longed  to  be  home  again. 
An  invitation  was  extended  to  him  to  remain  and 
preach  a  few  Sundays.  That  meant  $25  a  Sun- 
day and  a  welcome  each  week  in  the  house  of 
one  of  the  churchmen.  Mrs.  Beecher's  health 
seemed  to  improve  and  her  husband  reluctantly 
consented  to  continue  for  a  while. 
25 


On  June  13,  Plymouth  Church  was  publicly 
organized,  the  Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs  preaching 
the  sermon  for  the  occasion.  On  the  following 
day,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  elected  Pastor,  his  pastorate  being  begun  on 
Oct.  10  and  the  public  installation  taking  place 
on  Nov.  11.  Those  who  took  part  in  the  instal- 
lation were  the  Rev.  Drs.  Bushnell,  Humphrey, 
Hewitt,  Lansing,  R.  S.  Storrs,  J.  P.  Thompson, 
and  Edward  Beecher.  At  the  first  services  on 
Oct.  10,  the  church  in  the  morning  was  about 
three-quarters  full;  in  the  evening  it  was  com- 
pletely full,  and  in  a  short  space  of  time  the  edi- 
fice was  found  to  be  inadequate  to  the  constantly 
increasing  congregation.  In  a  year's  time  it  was 
found  necessary  to  build  a  new  edifice,  and  in 
about  one  year  and  a  half  after  the  arrival  of  Mr. 
Beecher  the  cornerstone  of  the  present  structure 
was  laid.  In  January  of  the  following  year 
(1850)  it  was  opened  for  worship. 

His  Work  Against  Slai-erv. 

Mr.  Beecher  at  once  announced  his  determin- 
ation to  preach  in  the  Plymouth  pulpit  Christ  as 
an  absolute  system  of  doctrine,  by  which  the 
ways  and  usages  of  society  should  be  judged, 
and  further  gave  notice  that  he  regarded  tem- 
perance and  anti-slavery  principles  as  a  part  of 
that  gospel.  The  excitement  caused  by  the  fugi- 
tive slave  law  and  Webster's  7th  of  March  speech 
brought  him  forward  into  the  arena  of  practical 
26 


work.  From  the  pulpit  he  went  into  the  lecture 
field,  and  visited  various  parts  of  New  York  and 
the  New  England  States.  In  the  Independent  he 
began  his  series  of  powerful  articles  under  the 
famous  star  (*)  signature,  which  were  widely 
read,  admired,  and  heeded.  Calhoun,  then  in 
his  last  illness,  started  up  as  his  secretary,  was 
reading  one  of  these  articles,  entitled  "Shall  we 
Compromise,"  and  exclaimed:  "Read  that  again! 
That  fellow  understands  his  subject;  he  has  gone 
to  the  bottom  of  it."  Plymouth  Church  mean- 
while grew  steadily  stronger  in  membership,  and 
though  dependent  entirely  for  support  on  the 
s.ile  of  seats,  Mr.  Beecher  made  it  clearly  under- 
stood that  the  buying  of  a  seat  would  make  it 
necessary  for  the  holders  to  hear  the  gospel  un- 
compromisingly applied  to  the  practical  issues  of 
the  time.  When  Kansas  was  being  settled,  he 
fearlessly  took  the  ground  that  emigrants  should 
go  out  well  armed,  and  caused  a  subscription  to 
be  raised  in  his  church  to  supply  every  family 
with  a  Bible  and  a  rifle. 

A  Memorable  Scene. 

About  the  time  Mr.  Beecher  first  began  tc  de- 
liver set  lectures  out  of  town  for  $50  and  his 
expenses,  Charles  Sumner  was  knocked  on  the 
head  in  the  Senate  Chamber  by  Brooks,  of  South 
Carolina.  The  entire  North  was  fired  with 
indignation,  and  the  solid  merchants  of  New 
York  thought  that  was  going  too  far.  A  mass 


meeting  of  protest  was  called  in  the  Tabernacle, 
and  in  order  to  make  it  significant  no  one  was 
invited  to  speak  who  had  ever  countenanced  the 
anti-slavery  movement.  It  was  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  conservatives.  The  chief  speakers, 
resolution  readers  and  fuglemen  were  Daniel  D. 
Lord,  John  Van  Buren  and  William  M.  Evarts. 
The  Tabernacle  was  packed  with  an  earnest, 
enthusiastic  audience,  which,  in  point  of  numbers 
and  respectability,  culture  and  influence  has 
rarely  been  surpassed.  For  some  reason  Mr. 
Beecher,  who  had  been  advertised  to  lecture  in 
Philadelphia  that  evening,  was  in  the  city.  He 
had  dined  with  his  friend  Mr.  Howard,  and 
together  they  went  to  the  Tabernacle  to  hear  the 
speaking.  As  the  meeting  was  about  to  be  closed 
some  one  in  the  audience  called  out  "Beecher." 
The  people  took  up  the  cry,  and  "Beecher, 
Beecher  "  resounded  through  the  church.  Mr. 
Evarts,  evidently  annoyed,  advanced  to  the  front 
of  the  platform  and  said: — "The  programme  of 
the  evening  is  concluded  and  the  meeting  will 
adjourn.  (A  voice — "Beecher!")  Mr.  Beecher, 
I  am  told,  is  lecturing  in  Philadelphia  this  even- 
ing." "No,  he  isn't,"  called  out  one  of  the 
reporters;  "there  he  is  behind  the  pillar."  The 
greater  part  of  the  audience  had  risen  and  pre- 
pared to  leave.  Beecher  was  recognized  and 
half  led,  half  forced  to  the  platform  from  which 
Mr.  Evarts  and  his  friends  precipitately  retired. 
John  Van  Buren,  with  the  instinct  of  a  gentleman, 

28 


advanced,  took  Mr.  Beecher  by  the  hand  and  led 
him  to  the  speaker's  place.  The  audience  re- 
seated themselves,  but  for  fully  five  minutes,  the 
house  was  in  an  uproar  of  enthusiasiic  greeting. 
With  a  wave  of  his  hand  Mr.  Beecher  secured 
silence  and  attention.  For  an  hour  he  delivered 
the  speech  of  his  life.  Every  eye  glistened. 
Such  applause  was  never  given  before.  The 
occasion  was  an  inspiration.  The  opportunity 
was  one  he  had  never  had  before.  But  it  is 
doubtful  that  he  thought  of  either  one  or  the 
other.  He  had  the  scene  in  the  Senate  Chamber 
in  his  eye.  It  was  the  culminating  outrage  in  a 
series  of  horrors.  He  felt  it.  He  foresaw  its 
end.  He  made  that  audience  feel  what  he  felt 
and  see  what  he  saw,  and  when  he  closed  he 
glowed  like  a  furnace,  while  the  people  cheered 
with  their  throats  full  of  tears.  Such  scenes 
occur  once  in  a  lifetime.  The  next  day's  papers 
reported  Beecher  verbatim  and  gave  the  others 
what  they  could  find  space  for. 

The  Keynote  of  the  Campaign. 

From  that  time  on  the  printed  and  spoken 
utterances  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  were  taken 
as  the  keynote  of  the  great  campaign  against 
slavery  and  its  extension  into  the  free  Territories 
of  the  Northwest.  Some  of  his  people  objected 
strenuously  to  their  pastor's  course.  They 
thought  it  lowered  the  pulpit  and  brought  religion 
and  politics  to  a  common  level.  Mr.  Beecher 
29 


met  their  objections  good  humoredly  but 
seriously.  That  any  man  worthy  the  name  could 
contemplate  the  slavery  of  his  fellow  and  seriously 
defend  an  institution  whose  corner  stone  was  the 
defilement  of  the  image  of  God  seemed  to  him 
an  abasement  of  human  intelligence.  "  Tell  me," 
he  said,  "that  you  mean  to  hold  on  to  slavery 
because  it  is  profitable  or  because  you  love  power 
and  I  will  respect  at  least  your  truth,  but  if  you 
attempt  to  justify  your  infamy  by  scriptural 
quotations  or  specious  arguments  about  rights  I 
spew  y$u  from  my  friendship."  The  "silver- 
gray  "  merchants  who  demurred  at  his  constant 
agitation  of  this  subject  and  who  affected  to  re- 
gard him  as  a  mountebank  he  bombarded  with- 
out mercy.  They  were  rich  and  in  positions  of 
influence,  therefore,  they  were  the  more  danger- 
ous and  he  spared  nothing  that  would  convict 
them  of  treachery  to  the  Master  whose  children 
and  servants  they  professed  to  be.  By  his  voice 
and  pen,  he  stirred  the  depths  of  the  heart  of  the 
nation,  and  although  to  many  it  appeared  as  if 
pastor  and  church  were  monomaniacs,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  they  stood  together  in  stormy 
and  troublesome  times,  faithful  witnesses  to  the 
great  truths  of  human  rights  and  human  liberty. 
Later  on,  when,  as  the  result  of  such  agitations, 
discussion  broke  out  into  a  flame  of  war,  they 
did  not  flinch,  but  gave  their  sons  and  daughters, 
sending  them  to  the  field  and  to  the  hospital. 
He  kept  a  vigilant  eye  upon  affairs  and  was  one 

30 


on  whom  men  in  authority  leaned  for  counsel. 
He  had  worked  hard  to  elect  Abraham  Lincoln, 
and  often  thanked  God  that  He  had  raised  such  a 
man  from  the  level  of  the  people.  As  the  na- 
tion hesitated  in  its  first  step  the  clarion  cry  of 
Beecher  recalled  it  to  its  duty.  Later  on,  when 
disaster  and  defeat  sent  the  thrill  of  dismay 
through  the  North,  the  voice  of  Beecher  warned 
the  people  of  the  danger  of  neglecting  duty  and 
the  infamy  of  desertion.  He  wrote  and  spoke  and 
urged  and  worked  without  rest.  He  counselled 
the  President,  cheered  the  troops  and  en- 
couraged the  people.  During  the  war  the 
church  was  largely  instrumental  in  raising  and 
equipping  a  regiment  known  as  the  First  Long 
Island  Regiment,  and  many  of  the  young  men 
of  the  church  were  members  of  it,  Mr.  Beecher's 
eldest  son  being  an  officer.  To  another  regi- 
ment— the  Fourteenth — the  church  contributed 
nearly  all  the  men  in  two  companies.  Mr. 
Beecher  became  in  those  days  editor  of  the  In- 
dependent, having  been  for  several  years  one  of 
its  contributors,  and  was  thus  able  to  place  be- 
fore the  whole  country  his  views  on  the  great 
questions  of  the  time.  He  was  in  constant 
communication  with  prominent  men  at  Wash- 
ington, and  was  intimate  with  the  Secretary  of 
War,  in  whose  patriotism  and  efficiency  he  had 
great  confidence. 

In  England  in  War  Times. 
Incessant  and  exhausting  labors  finally  under- 
31 


mined  Mr.  Beecher's  strength  and  his  voice  began 
to  fail.  It  was  decided  that  lie  should  go  abroad 
for  temporary  rest.  His  health  once  before  haa 
been  broken.  This  was  in  March,  1849,  when 
he  was  severely  ill  and  unable  to  preach  between 
March  and  September,  and  in  the  following  June, 
under  a  leave  of  absence  he  went  abroad. 
Another  leave  of  absence  was  granted  in  1856, 
but  this  was  not  on  account  of  ill-health.  Em- 
inent clergymen  and  others  had  requested  it  "in 
order  that  he  might  traverse  the  country  in  be- 
half of  the  cause  of  liberty,  then  felt  to  be  in 
peril."  On  going  abroad  a  second  time  in  June, 
1863,  he  had  no  idea  that  he  was  going  in  behalf 
of  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  the  many  entreaties 
that  were  made  on  his  arrival  for  him  to  speak 
in  England  were  uniformly  declined.  He  re- 
mained in  that  country  but  a  short  time,  going 
thence  to  Wales,  to  Paris,  S\vitzerland,Northern 
Italy,  and  Germany.  He  received  in  Paris  the 
news  that  Vicksburg  had  fallen  and  that  the 
Union  Army  had  won  at  Gettysburg.  Return- 
ing to  England  he  was  again  asked  to  speak. 
He  again  declined,  and  on  the  same  ground  as 
before,  that  this  was  a  quarrel  which  the  Ameri- 
cans must  fight  out,  and  which  could  not  be 
talked.  Requests  were,  however,  still  pressed 
upon  him,  and  he  was  at  last  made  to  see  that 
he  owed  a  duty  to  that  small  but  devoted  party 
which  had  been  holding  up  the  Northern  cause 
in  England  against  heavy  odds.  A  series  of  en- 
32 


gagements  were  accordingly  made  for  him  to 
speak  in  the  chief  cities  of  England  and  Scot- 
land. His  opening  address  was  made  in  the 
Free  Trade  Hall,  at  Manchester,  to  an  audience 
of  6000  persons. 

When  the  orator  appeared  there  at  once  arose 
so  wild  a  yell,  such  a  storm  of  hisses  and  such  an 
outburst  of  opprobrium,  that  braver  men  would 
have  been  justified  in  declining  to  face  them. 

Not  so  Beecher. 

He  advanced  to  the  front  of  the  platform  and 
benignantly  smiled.  He  was  the  embodiment 
of  good  nature — fat,  round  and  jolly.  His  bump 
of  humor  was  erect  and  took  in  the  situation. 
Of  physical  danger — and  there  was  plenty  of  it — 
he  had  no  fear.  All  he  wanted  was  silence  and 
attention.  He  made  friends  with  the  reporters 
at  once.  They  spoke  to  him  and  he  to  them. 
Gradually  the  uproar  diminished  and  he  began 
to  speak.  It  then  repeated  itself  only  again  to 
subside.  After  a  little  Mr.  Beecher  suggested 
the  propriety  of  a  little  fair  play  in  the  matter, 
and  expressed  his  perfect  faith  in  the  desire  of 
every  Englishman  present  to  give  him  at  least 
half  the  time.  That  broke  the  spell.  It  was  use- 
less to  fight  a  man  who  laughed.  It  was  folly  to 
spend  the  evening  in  shouting  at  a  man  who  was 
content  to  wait  until  his  opponent's  throat  was 
choked  with  hoarseness,  and  they  allowed  him 
to  proceed.  They  soon  felt  the  warmth  of  his 
nature  and  yielded  to  the  magnetism  of  his 


manner.  Before  he  had  spoken  an  hour  he  held 
the  audience  in  his  hand.  Then  came  the  tug 
of  war.  Scattered  in  the  audience  were  the 
Confederate  agents.  They  knew  Beecher  of  old. 
They  appreciated  his  power  and  feared  precisely 
what  had  happened.  To  divert  the  audience 
was  their  evident  cue.  But  how  ?  By  discon- 
certing Beecher  !  To  accomplish  this  one  after 
another  asked  him  questions.  That  was  his  op- 
portunity. Every  question  was  a  text.  Each 
interruption  was  a  chance.  Repartee  and  re- 
joinder flashed  from  his  lips.  Wit  and  elo- 
quence flowed  like  water.  Possessed  of  all  the 
facts,  historical  and  political,  familiar  with  the 
social,  tendencies  of  slavery,  posted  about  the 
leaders  and  alive  to  the  importance  of  his  vict- 
ory to  the  cause  of  his  country,  Mr.  Beecher 
gave  that  audience  a  specimen  of  zealous  patri- 
otism, American  eloquence  and  sledge  hammer 
argument  that  compelled  them  to  confess  judg- 
ment and  cheer  him  to  the  echo. 

His  Reception  at  Home. 

That  he  won  his  oratorical  battles  in  every 
place  he  spoke  even  his  enemies  declared.  Every 
word  he  uttered  was  reported  and  printed.  He 
displayed  himself  in  all  his  best  array.  He  made 
the  people  listen  to  his  sober  arguments,  laugh 
at  his  wit  and  weep  when  he  mourned.  The 
man  who  had  hitherto  been  kno\vn  as  "Ward 
Beecher,  a  brother  of  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe,"  now 
34 


had  his  own  firm  foundation.  Social  attentions 
were  showered  on  him  and  he  became  the  rage, 
but  the  same  self-respect  that  had  sustained  him 
when  he  was  literally  ignored  before,  now  kept 
him  from  the  abasement  of  recognizing  aught 
that  did  not  benefit  the  cause  he  served.  After 
a  series  of  oratorical  triumphs  unprecedented  in 
the  annals  of  the  British  platform  this  hardy 
American  Ambassador  returned  to  his  home  and 
to  a  welcome  which  passes  description. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  when  Mr. 
Beecher  returned  from  England  he  could  have 
claimed  any  reward  in  the  gift  of  the  govern- 
ment. But  he  had  his  reward  in  the  gratitude 
of  the  nation  and  the  affectionate  demonstra- 
tions of  fellow  citizens.  He  simply  resumed  his 
work  in  its  several  lines,  and  continued  the  suc- 
cesses of  his  life.  As  the  war  wore  on  and  the 
question  of  Presidential  candidates  came  up,  he 
was  outspoken  of  advocacy  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  re/ 
election,  and  in  the  following  campaign  did 
much  to  secure  that  end.  When  finally  the  war 
was  happily  ended  and  peace  declared  he  was 
the  first  to  stretch  the  hand  of  reconciliation 
across  the  bloody  chasm,  and  in  a  memorable 
discourse  preached  the  doctrine  of  brotherly  love. 
The  preoccupation  of  Fort  Sumter  and  the  rais- 
ing of  the  old  flag  was  made  an  occasion  of  na- 
tional rejoicing,  and  Mr.  Beecher  was  chosen  as 
the  orator  of  the  day.  But  grave  and  gay  as  were 
the  festivities  of  that  hour  they  paled  into  insigni- 
35 


ficance  in  the  presence  of  a  bereavement  that  sent 
the  nations  of  the  earth  in  mourning  to  our  nation- 
al capital.  The  death  of  Lincoln  stirred  the  deep- 
est depths  of  Beecher's  nature,  and  rung  from 
him  a  tribute  of  love  and  esteem  and  thoughtful 
appreciation  that  will  be  forever  embalmed  in  the 
literature  of  the  age.  Apprehensive  of  discord 
at  Washington  Mr.  Beecher  was  one  of  the  first 
to  declare  in  favor  of  universal  amnesty  and  im- 
partial suffrage.  He  believed  Andrew  Johnson 
to  be  a  good  man,  and  when  he  wrote  his  famous 
Cleveland  letter  to  Charles  G.  Halpine  and  his 
associates  he  evinced  more  statesmanlike  quali- 
ties than  his  critics  at  the  time  understood. 
Friends  fell  from  him  in  consequence.  There 
were  many  who  could  not  forgive  and  forget. 
They  were  willing  to  say  "I  forgive,"  but  they 
had  suffered  too  much  to  pretend  to  forget. 
These  frowned  on  Mr.  Beecher  and  accused  him 
of  being  a  time  server.  At  this  he  laughed  as 
heartily  as  when  the  same  people  charged  him 
with  being  foolhardy  in  his  anti-slavery  cam- 
paign. He  said  he  could  afford  to  wait,  and  he 
did. 

His  Literary  Work. 

Few  persons  know  what  an  immense  amount 
of  literary  work  Mr.  Beecher  accomplished. 
The  following  is  a  list  of  his  published  works: — 

Sermons,  ten  volumes  of  475  pages  each. 

Sermons,  four  volumes  of  600  pages  each. 

"A  Summer  Parish,"  240  pages. 
36 


"Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  first,  second 
and  third  series. 

"Lectures  to  Young  Men,"  506  pages. 

"  Star  Papers,"  600  pages. 

"  Pleasant  Talk  about  Fruits,  Flowers  and 
Farming."  498  pages. 

"  Lecture  Room  Talks,"  384  pages. 

"  Norwood;  or,  Village  Life  in  New  Eng- 
land." 549  pages. 

"The  Overture  of  Angels." 

"Eyes  and  Ears;  or,  Thoughts  as  they  Occur." 

"  Freedom  and  War." 

"  Royal  Truths." 

"  Views  and  Experiences  of  Religious  Sub- 
jects." 

"  Life  of  Jesus  the  Christ." 

All  these  in  addition  to  his  writings  on  agricul- 
tural, political  and  general  subjects,  his  routine 
work  and  special  trips  for  lecturing  or  speaking. 
He  was  always  greatly  interested  in  church 
music,  more  especially  in  the  form  of  congrega- 
tional singing,  and  one  of  the  first  things  done 
by  the  new  pastor  from  the  West,  when  he  took 
charge  of  Plymouth  Church,  was  to  compile  a 
book  of  hymns  and  tunes  for  the  use  of  his  own 
and  sister  churches. 

The  "  Life  of  Jesus" 

For  obvious   reasons  Mr.  Beecher's  "  Life  of 
Jesus  the  Christ  "  deserves  more  than  a  mention 
in  the  list  of  his  writings.     During  many  years 
39 


he  had  loved,  believed  in  and  taught  his  people 
concerning  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  all  the  vitality 
of  his  faith  appeared  to  centre.  To  him  Christ 
was  everything  and  he  cared  to  know  no  more. 
His  brother  clergymen  and  his  own  people  often 
asked  him  to  explain  his  views  of  Christ.  He 
resolved  to  put  himself  on  record  and  to  write  a 
book  that  would  inspire  a  deeper  interest  in  the 
life  and  sympathies  of  his  Master.  Writing  him- 
self about  it,  Mr.  Beecher  said  : — 

"I  have  undertaken  to  write  a  life  of  Jesus 
the  Christ  in  the  hope  of  inspiring  a  deeper  in- 
terest in  the  noble  Personage  of  whom  those 
matchless  histories,  the  Gospels  of  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke  and  John,  are  the  chief  authentic 
memorials.  I  have  endeavored  to  present  scenes 
that  occurred  two  thousand  years  ago  as  they 
would  appear  to  modern  eyes  if  the  events  had 
taken  place  in  our  day.  *  *  Writing  in  full 
sympathy  with  the  Gospels,  as  authentic  histori- 
cal documents,  and  with  the  nature  and  teach- 
ings of  the  great  Personage  whom  they  describe. 
*  *  *  I  have  not  invented  a  life  of  Jesus  to  suit 
the  critical  philosophy  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  Jesus  of  the  four  Evangelists  for  well  nigh 
two  thousand  years  has  exerted  a  powerful  influ- 
ence upon  the  heart,  the  understanding  and  the 
imagination  of  mankind.  It  is  that  Jesus,  and 
not  a  modern  substitute,  whom  I  have  sought 
to  depict,  in  His  life,  His  social  relations,  His 
disposition,  His  deeds  and  doctrines."  *  *  * 
40 


in  the  latter  part  of  1872,  Ford  &  Co  ,  issued 
the  first  volume — first  paying  Mr.Beecher  $10,000 
cash  for  the  completed  work  yet  to  be  written — 
and  it  was  at  once  hailed  with  enthusiasm  by 
eminent  men  the  world  around.  Dr.  Storrs,  of 
the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  Brooklyn,  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  "  the  book  which  the  masses  of 
the  Christian  world  have  been  waiting  for." 
The  religious  press,  without  exception,  accorded 
it  a  respectful  welcome,  and  scholars  and  the 
clergy  vied  with  each  other  in  its  praise.  A  well- 
known  English  critic  said  that  Beecher's  "  Life 
of  Christ  "  would  be  welcome  to  Christians,  in- 
quirers, skeptics,  infidels,  teachers,  Bible  classes, 
home  circles  and  intelligent  readers  of  every 
name.  That  Mr.  Beecher  put  his  best  work  in 
the  first  volume  was  evident  to  any  critical 
reader,  and  the  publishers  gave  it  a  frame  worthy 
of  the  picture.  Agents  sold  the  book  faster  than 
it  could  be  furnished,  and  that  Mr.  Beecher 
would  make  fortune  as  well  as  fame  was  a  mor- 
al certainty. 

On   The  Summit  Of  Prosperity. 

At  this  time  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
find  a  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth  on  whom  the 
sun  of  fortune  shone  more  brilliantly  than  on 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  and  his  always 
united  Church  had  just  celebrated  their  sil- 
ver wedding — the  25th  anniversary  of  their  com- 
ing together — at  which  none  but  sunny  memor- 
41 


ies  were  disclosed.  He  was  honored  by  the  na- 
tion. His  influence  with  the  government  and 
the  people  was  equal  to  that  of  any  one.  He 
was  in  constant  demand  as  a  lecturer,  and  his 
appearance  in  popular  assemblages  was  invari- 
ably the  signal  for  genuine  and  welcoming  ap- 
plause. Although  not  rich  he  had  an  enormous 
income,  which  he  spent  freely  and  generously. 
His  paper,  The  Christian  Union,  half  of  which  he 
owned,  had  attained  a  phenomenal  circulation, 
and  prosperity  "lived  upon  his  business."  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Storrs,  in  an  address  delivered  on  the 
10th  of  October,  1872,  paid  him,  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Christian  community,  a  compli- 
ment of  which  any  man  in  Christendom  might 
well  be  proud.  He  at  great  length  analyzed  the 
elements  of  his  power,  which  he  classed  in  the 
following  sequence  ; — First,  a  thoroughly  vital- 
ized mind,  its  creative  faculties  in  full  play  all 
the  time  ;  second,  immense  common  sense,  a 
wonderful  self-rectifying  judgment  ;  third,  a 
quick  and  deep  sympathy  with  men;  fourth, 
mental  sensibility;  fifth,  his  wonderful  animal 
vigor,  his  fulness  of  bodily  power,  his  voice  which 
can  whisper  and  thunder  alike;  his  s>mpathy 
with  nature  and  an  enthusiasm  for  Christ  which 
has  certainly  been  the  animating  power  of  his 
ministry.  He  spoke  of  him  as  the  foremost 
preacher  in  the  American  pulpit.  After  contin- 
uing in  a  most  eulogistic  strain  a  long  time  Dr. 
Storrs,  in  the  presence  of  an  immense  and  silent 
42 


congregation,   advanced   to    Mr.    Beecher,  who 
arose,  and  taking  him  by  the  hand,  said: — 

"  I  am  here  to-night  to  give  him  the  right  hand 
of  congratulation  on  the  closing  of  this  twenty- 
fifth  year  of  his  ministry,  and  to  say,  God  be 
praised  for  all  the  work  that  you  have  done  here. 
God  be  praised  for  the  generous  gifts  which  He 
has  showered  upon  you,  and  the  generous  use 
which  you  have  made  of  them,here  and  elsewhere, 
and  everywhere  in  the  land!  God  give  you  many 
happy  and  glorious  years  of  work  and  joy  still 
to  come  in  your  ministry  on  earth  !  May  your 
soul,  as  the  years  go  on,  be  whitened  more  and 
more  in  the  radiance  of  God's  light  and  in  the 
sunshine  of  His  love !  And,  when  the  end 
comes — as  it  will — may  the  gates  of  pearl  swing 
inward  for  your  entrance,  before  the  hands  of 
those  who  have  gone  up  before  you  and  who 
now  wait  to  welcome  you  thither!  and  then  may 
there  open  to  you  that  vast  and  bright  eternity — 
all  vivid  with  God's  love — in  which  an  instant 
vision  shall  be  perfect  joy,  and  an  immortal  la- 
bor shall  be  to  you  immortal  rest  !  " 

"  This  magnificent  concluding  passage,"  said 
a  local  paper  the  next  day,  "was  uttered  with 
an  eloquence  that  defies  description.  At  its  con- 
clusion Mr.  Beecher,  with  tears,  and  trembling 
from  head  to  foot,  advanced,  and  placing  his  hand 
on  Dr.  Storr's  shoulder,  kissed  him  upon  the 
cheek.  The  congregation  sat  for  a  moment 
breathless  and  enraptured  with  this  simple  and 
43 


beautiful  action.  Then  there  broke  from  them 
such  a  burst  of  applause  as  never  before  was 
heard  in  an  ecclesiastical  edifice.  There  was  not 
a  dry  eye  in  the  house." 

Under  A  Cloud. 

At  the  very  flood  tide  of  his  popularity  and 
fame  and  at  the  height  of  the  usefulness  of  his 
church,  came  the  supreme  trial  of  his  life.  Be- 
ginning in  a  series  of  whispers,  rumors  and  re- 
ports went  flying  about  until  in  1874  a  committee 
was  appointed  by  the  church  to  investigate  the 
charges  which  were  finally  brought  against  Mr. 
Beecher  by  his  professed  friend,  Theodore 
Tilton. 

To  these  charges,  Mr.  Beecher,  on  August 
14th,  made  a  positive  denial  in  an  elaborate 
statement  before  his  congregation.  Mr.  Moul- 
ton,  a  mutual  friend,  then  came  into  the  matter 
with  a  story  of  the  most  remarkable  confessions 
and  letters.  The  committee  appointed  by  the 
church  acquitted  Mr.  Beecher  and  his  enemies 
were  vigorously  denounced.  Mr.  Tilton  con- 
cluded to  go  into  the  courts  and  brought  suit 
against  Mr.  Beecher  for  $100.000.  The  trial  on 
account  of  the  number  and  prominence  of  the 
witnesses,  the  length  of  time  it  occupied,  and  its 
enormous  expense  on  both  sides,  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  the  country  has  ever  witnessed. 
Thousands  of  columns  of  space  in  the  daily 
papers  were  taken  up  with  accounts  of  it.  After 
44 


eight  days  consultation  the  jury  found  that 
they  could  not  agree,  and  the  great  trial  ended 
without  that  public  vindication  which  millions 
of  hearts  hoped  for,  expected  and  desired. 
This  great  trouble  into  which  he  was  led  by  as- 
sociation with  pretended  friends  only  intensified 
the  confidence  and  affection  of  his  church,  the 
members  of  which  stood  by  him  almost  to  a  man ; 
they  never  doubted  him.  While  opinion  was 
divided,  those  who  knew  him  best  found  it  most 
difficult  to  believe  the  charges  brought  against 
him,  and  still  more  difficult  to  reconcile  the 
manner  in  which  he  bore  himself,  with  his  guilt. 
He  stood  through  it  all,  self-possessed  and  calm. 
With  an  almost  superhuman  command  over 
himself,  he  pursued  his  daily  avocations  as 
though  nothing  had  happened,  greeted  his 
friends,  faced  his  enemies  and  waited;  waited, 
as  though  conscious  that  whatever  the  verdict  of 
the  present  might  be  he  was  secure  in  the  vindi- 
cation of  the  future. 

There  is  one  point  in  Mr.  Beecher's  conduct 
at  this  time  which  cannot  fail  to  elevate  him  in 
the  estimation  of  millions  of  his  countrymen,  and 
that  is,  the  manner  in  which  he  treated  his  ene- 
mies. During  the  trial  and  in  all  the  long  years 
since,  in  the  midst  of  slander,  abuse  and  denun- 
ciation, no  words  of  bitterness  fell  from  his  lips 
or  pen,  he  did  not,  as  he  well  might  have  done, 
use  his  remarkable  powers  of  wit  or  satire  in 
retaliation  for  the  abuse  heaped  upon  him. 
45 


While  his  counsel  did  not  succeed  in  estab- 
lishing Mr.  Beecher's  innocence  in  the  minds  of 
all  the  jurymen  they  satisfied  nine  out  of  the 
twelve  of  that  fact  and  showed  not  alone  to  the 
jury,  but  to  the  world  that  the  man  who 
brought  the  charges  had,  though  with  full 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  affairs,  kept  quiet 
for  years  during  which  he  was  receiving 
help  from  Mr.  Beecher  and  only  sought  public- 
ity when  a  demand  for  money  which  was  little 
less  than  blackmail,  was  refused. 

Mrs.  Beecher's  Heroism. 

In  all  the  annals  of  domestic  faithfulness, 
there  cannot  be  found  a  more  shining  example 
of  devotion  to  a  husband  than  is  presented  by 
the  story  of  her  married  life.  It  has  been  her 
habit  always  to  guard  and  defend  with  infinite 
care  and  tenderness  the  name  of  the  great  man 
who  so  long  ago  won  her  girlish  heart  and  started 
on  that  journey  of  life  which  has  involved 
every  form  of  trial  and  sorrow,  notwithstanding 
its  many  successes  and  delights.  At  no  time  and 
under  no  circumstances  has  she  ever  failed  or 
flinched  when  the  interests  of  her  husband  were 
at  stake.  If  we  could  know  the  whole  truth  it 
would  very  likely  appear  that  but  for  her  robust 
and  indomitable  faith,  her  power  of  encourage- 
ment and  her  gift  of  smoothing  rough  places  he 
would  have  faltered  and  missed  his  chance  many 
times  when  he  went  boldly  and  grandly  forward 
46 


or,  possibly,  but  for  that  assistance,  he  would 
have  given  up  his  appointed  career,  thus  depriv- 
ing the  world  of  the  greatest  preacher  of  his 
time.  There  must  have  been  not  a  few  occa- 
sions when  he  was  tempted  to  choose  rest  and 
safety  instead  of  the  strife  and  peril  into  which 
he  plunged,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  his  wife's 
advice  was  always  a  potent  force  on  the  side  of 
such  a  conclusion. 

The  friends  of  the  great  man  will  never  for- 
get how  like  a  heroine  Mrs.  Beecher  behaved 
during  her  husband's  supreme  trouble,  when 
that  great  wave  of  scandal  rolled  over  him  in 
connection  with  the  Tiltons.  Throughout  the 
whole  prolonged  and  humiliating  trial,  every- 
body knows,  she  was  constantly  present  in  the 
court  room,  attentive  but  undismayed,  pained  to 
the  last  point  of  endurance  but  still  erect,  stead- 
fast and  confident.  It  was  not  merely  her  hus- 
band's reputation,  we  must  remember,  but  her 
own  honor  as  well,  and  the  highest  interest  of  her 
children,  living  and  dead,  that  were  threatened 
with  disaster.  The  tales  to  which  she  had  to 
listen  were  of  a  kind  which  few  women  could 
have  heard  and  yet  stood  firm  and  self-reliant, 
as  she  did  —a  picture  of  a  wife  and  mother  at 
her  best,  of  womanhood  at  its  proudest  and 
noblest.  If  she  had  wavered  for  an  instant,  the 
scales  might  have  turned  to  the  swift  and  ab- 
solute ruin  of  the  man  for  whom  her  remarkable 
devotion  pleaded  with  such  persistent  and  pa- 
47 


thetic  emphasis.  Though  she  never  said  a  word, 
she  was  Mr.  Beecher's  most  valuable  witness. 
He  might,  perhaps,  have  survived  the  terrible 
ordeal  if  she  had  been  absent ;  but  certainly  the 
task  would  have  been  a  much  harder  one,  and 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  himself 
convinced  that  the  aid  she  rendered  him  was 
exceedingly  fortunate,  if  not  indispensable. 

Birthday    Celebration. 

The  celebration  of  Mr.  Beecher's  seventieth 
birthday  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  Brooklyn, 
June  25,  1883,  was  a  wonderful  manifestation  of 
his  popularity  in  the  city  of  his  adoption.  It 
was  not  an  ovation  from  a  mere  congregation  to 
whom  his  labors  and  his  eloquence  had  endeared 
him,  it  was  a  demonstration  of  a  whole  city,  and 
showed  how  fully  he  had  been  restored  to  popular 
favor  and  confidence,  to  the  very  hearts  of  those 
who  were  best  acquainted  with  him. 

From  the  parquet  to  the  gayly  frescoed  roof 
of  the  building  the  Academy  was  packed.  Not 
even  at  the  great  political  gatherings  which  this 
structure  has  witnessed  has  the  multitude  been 
greater.  Men  of  all  classes,  all  parties  and 
nearly  all  religious  denominations  joined  in  the 
jubilee. 

In  Mr.  Beecher's  address  he  said: — 

"  If  there  is  any  one  thing  that  is  dearer  to 
my  heart  than  another,  it  is  the  belief  in  an  im- 
manent God,  in  all  men  and  in  all  things,  and 


what  vanity  it  would  be  for  me  to  stand  here  and 
say  that  the  things  of  which  I  have  been  per- 
mitted to  be  a  spectator  were  mine.  They  are 
the  footsteps  of  God.  This  is  the  progress  that 
long  ago  has  been  predicted  and  of  which  we 
have  seen  but  the  opening  chapters  No  man  is 
great  of  himself,  no  man  is  great  except  by  that 
open  channel  in  him  through  which  God  can 
speak  or  act.  And  whoever  says  anything  that 
shall  live  for  the  sake  of  humanity  borrows  it  ; 
it  is  not  his  own.  Whoever  does  anything  that 
is  worthy  of  his  time  and  of  his  nation,  it  is  God 
that  does  it.  Work  out  your  own  salvation,  saith 
God  to  the  individual  and  the  race,  with  fear  and 
trembling  and  earnestness,  for  it  is  God  that 
worketh  in  you  to  will  and  do  all  His  good 
pleasure.  When  I  look  down,  therefore,  into 
the  future  my  hope  and  my  confidence  is  that  re- 
ligion is  leading  men  on.  My  trust  and  my  un- 
shaken hope  for  the  future  is  that  God  reigns 
and  the  whole  earth  shall  see  His  salvation. 
I  accept,  then,  in  some  sort  this  gathering  to- 
night, not  as  testimony  to  me,  but  as  testimony 
to  my  Lord  and  my  Saviour." 

In  June,  1886,  at  the  earnest  desire  of  friends, 
Mr.  Beecher  revisited  England,  and  his  heart 
was  cheered  by  a  series  of  welcomes  and  recep- 
tions, the  parallel  to  which  no  other  American 
ever  enjoyed.  During  this  trip  his  letters  to 
friends  at  home  were  cheerful  and  character- 
istically descriptive.  Now  and  then  he  seemed 


to  lapse  into  his  despondent  mood,  and  once 
wrote,  "  It  would  be  a  delight  to  close  now  my 
work  and  go  to  my  rest,  unless,  indeed,  it  please 
God  that  I  must  keep  on  a  little  longer." 

Home  to  Work  and  Die. 

Vacation  ended,  Mr.  Beecher  came  home  to 
work  and  death. 

The  past  winter's  record  discloses  an  amaz- 
ing degree  of  work  laid  out  and  work  done.  He 
preached  twice  every  Sunday,  and  virtually 
every  Friday  night  as  well.  He  wrote  a  syndi- 
cate letter  for  the  press  weekly.  He  performed 
the  perfunctory  duties  of  his  great  parish — three 
in  one.  He  married  the  young  ;  he  buried  the 
old.  He  attended  receptions,  made  after-dinner 
speeches  and  visited  all  places  of  public  and 
healthful  recreation. 

And  chief  of  all  he  determined  to  take  up 
anew  and  finish  the  "  Life  of  Jesus  the  Christ." 
Changing  largely  the  active  habit  of  his  outdoor 
life  he  confined  himself  to  books,  to  study,  to 
thought  and  its  outworking.  His  very  heart  was 
in  his  endeavor.  He  assigned  himself  a  daily 
"stint."  That  is,  he  finished  a  certain  number 
of  pages  a  day.  It  was  easy  and  pleasant  to  do 
this,  but  the  mental  strain  was  unusual,  the  phy- 
sical restraint  was  unnatural,  and  the  draught 
on  his  emotional  nature  was  tremendous. 

He  anticipated  the  end.  Indeed,  his  ser- 
mons abound  with  references  to  the  delight  of  a 
50 


sudden  and  painless  death,  a  sleep  from  which 
the  awakening  should  be  heaven;  and  now  that 
he  is  gone,  friends  look,  and  not  in  vain,  for  such 
comfort  as  can  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
great  American,  our  foremost  orator,  the  first 
citizen  of  his  vicinage,  died  as  he  had  hoped, 
he  would,  in  the  plenitude  of  power,  on  the 
very  pinnacle  of  fame,  beloved  by  a  nation  and 
admired  by  a  world. 

His  Illness  and  Death. 

Mr.  Beecher's  oft  expressed  desire  that  he 
might  die  in  the  harness  and  not  be  subject  to  a 
long  and  lingering  illness  was  granted. 

Thursday,  March  3rd,  1887,  was  his  last  day 
of  health  and  full  consciousness  on  earth.  In 
company  with  IS'rs.  Beecher  he  spent  most  of 
the  day  in  New  York,  returning  home  in  time 
for  supper.  Mrs.  Beecher  afterward  remarked 
"  It  was  the  happiest  day  of  my  life.  I  never 
knew  my  husband  so  lively,  tender  and  joy- 
ous before  or  not  in  a  long  time.  His  mind, 
heart  and  health  were  at  their  best.  He  over- 
flowed with  talk,  both  humorous  and  serious." 

That  night  Mr.  Beecher  dined  with  the  fam- 
ily, played  backgammon  in  the  sitting  room, 
waited  for  a  couple  that  wanted  to  be  married, 
went  out  on  an  errand  and  returning  early  re- 
tired at  once.  During  the  night  Mrs.  Beecher, 
whose  room  adjoined  her  husband's,  was  aroused 
by  a  sound  in  his  room.  She  was  at  his  side  in 
51 


a  moment  and  found  him  suffering  from  nausea. 
He  soon  fell  asleep  and  remained  in  that  condi- 
tion until  four  o'clock  the  following  afternoon, 
when  she  summoned  the  family  doctor.  Efforts 
were  made  to  arouse  him  but  the  great  man 
never  fully  regained  consciousness.  The  doctor 
was  not  alarmed  at  first,  thinking  the  prolonged 
slumber  was  due  to  biliousness  to  which 
Mr.  Beecher  was  subject.  When  he  returned 
later  in  that  day,  however,  he  found  that  his 
patient  had  had  a  stroke  of  apoplexy.  Mrs. 
Beecher  took  the  hand  of  her  husband  in  her 
own  and  he  gave  it  a  long,  strong,  loving  and 
earnest  pressure.  It  was  farewell — He  closed 
his  eyes  never  to  open  them  again — From  that 
hour  until  the  end,  which  came  three  days  later, 
he  remained  asleep  and  unconscious.  When 
the  end  came  the  whole  family  stood  or  knelt 
around.  Not  one  of  them  shed  a  tear  or 
gave  expression  to  a  sob — then  and  there.  The 
supreme  self-control  was  in  obedience  to  Mr. 
Beecher's  often  expressed  hope  and  wish  that 
around  his  bed  of  release  not  tears  should  fall, 
but  the  feeling  should  prevail  as  of  those  who 
think  of  a  soul  gone  to  a  crowning. 

Universal  Mourning. 

The  mourning  for  Mr.  Beecher  in  the  city  of 
Brooklyn,  may  be  said  to  have  continued 
throughout  the  week  of  his  death,  and  to  have 
been  almost  universal.  It  was  very  impressive 


HOUSE  IN  WHICH  MR.  BEECHER  DIED,  BROOKLYN,'!*.  Y. 


for  its  spontaneity  and  genuineness.  The  scenes 
from  day  to  day  as  the  crowds  gathered  silently 
in  front  of  the  house  where  he  lay  dying,  or  a 
little  later  when  stores  and  dwellings,  with  never 
a  shred  of  crape  in  sight,  emulated  each  other  in 
tasteful  displays  of  Mr.  Beecher's  favorite 
flowers,  so  that  the  streets  at  intervals  became 
fairy  scenes,  especially  at  evening  time,  will  not 
soon  be  forgotten,  and  may  never  be  repeated. 
And  all  this  and  much  more  was  made  impres- 
sive by  the  feeling  which  incited  it.  It  was  not 
formal  homage  that  was  being  paid,  suggested 
or  helped  by  near  friends.  Everybody  seemed 
equally  interested. 

Nor  was  it  Brooklyn  alone  that  mourned,  nor 
the  continent  of  America.  The  whole  civilized 
world  felt  his  loss  and  from  many  a  distant 
clime  the  cable  flashed  messages  of  regret  for 
humanity's  loss  and  words  of  sympathy  for  the 
stricken  family. 

The  homage  to  the  memory  of  the  man  was 
universal.  The  sympathy  for  his  family  as 
extended  as  was  that  influence  with  which  his 
superb  employment  of  magnificent  capacities 
girdled  the  globe. 

Christendom  was  presented  with  the  melan- 
choly but  heart-relieving  occasion  to  speak  its 
tribute  of  love  to  the  liberator  of  theology.  Poli- 
tics was  supplied  with  the  period  in  which  it  could 
say  Hail  and  Farewell  to  the  liberator  of  the 
slave.  Philanthropy  could  recall  the  majesty  of 
55 


mind  and  the  magnetism  of  manner  of  him  to 
whom  palms  of  pleading  were  never  stretched 
out  in  vain.  Partisanship  grounded  arms  around 
the  memory  of  the  statesman.  Polemics  ceased 
from  dispute  in  the  recollection  of  the  passage 
of  the  soul  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gospel  of  Love. 
Levity  sheathed  its  blade  and  put  it  aside,  as  the 
genial  humorist  wended  his  unhasting  course 
down  the  valley.  The  ethical  agencies  in  gov- 
ernments paused  to  recall  the  record  of  the  re- 
former, who  had  fallen  by  the  way  with  his  har- 
ness on.  Journalism  discharged  its  endless  du- 
ties under  the  solemnizing  shadow  of  the  con- 
sciousness that  one  who  was  mighty  with  the  pen 
had  sent  on  the  proof  sheets  of  his  life  to  be  re- 
vised by  the  Hand  of  Divine  Mercy. 

His  Funeral. 

The  day  of  the  funeral  (Friday)  was  a  Sab- 
bath in  the  midst  of  the  week.  Business  was 
put  aside  ostensibly  by  the  advice  of  the  Mayor; 
really,  and  from  bank  to  bakeshop,  because  the 
general  sentiment  required  it. 

There  was  nothing  of  gloom  in  the  last  public 
tribute  of  Brooklyn  to  her  greatest  son  and  to 
the  nation's  foremost  citizen,  whose  life,  full  of 
worthiness  and  honors,  had  fallen  ripe  from  the 
branch  of  mortality  to  become  immortal.  All 
day  long,  through  the  aisles  which  led  to  his  cof- 
fin, passed  the  ceaseless  stream,  never  pausing  ; 
yet  night  fell  and  found  tens  of  thousands  still 
56 


ungratified.  Five  churches  were  thronged  to 
hear  his  praises  and  thank  God  for  such  a  man, 
yet  not  a  tithe  of  those  eager  to  do  him  rever- 
ence could  find  a  foothold;  the  streets  about  his 
resting  place  teemed  all  day  with  patient  hun- 
dreds awaiting  their  turn;  no  building  in  the 
world  could  have  contained  the  myriads  gathered 
in  his  name.  The  flag,  his  great  eloquence  had 
helped  to  defend  rippled  its  glories  in  the  sun  ; 
the  doors  of  the  public  buildings  were  closed ; 
the  busy  hum  of  commerce  was  stilled;  bell  an- 
swered bell  from  the  solemn  spires;  there  was 
the  throb  of  drums  in  the  street,  the  flaunting  of 
his  regiment's  colors  and  the  flash  of  arms,  and 
through  the  thoroughfare  streamed  the  rich  and 
the  poor,  men  of  all  creeds  and  nationalities.  The 
aged,  bowed  with  years,  and  many  troubles,  and 
children  with  curls  tossing  and  cheeks  aflame, 
mothers  and  maidens,  the  strong  and  the  feeble, 
all  pouring  in  one  common  stream  to  cast  a  last 
look  on  the  tranquil  face  of  him  whose  great- 
ness was  of  deeds  wrought  for  love  of  them. 
Orator,  teacher  and  statesman,  philosopher  and 
poet,  diplomat,  journalist — he  was  these  as  well 
as  minister  of  God;  he  was  the  comforter  of 
those  in  sorrow;  he  was  the  helper  of  those  who 
needed;  he  enlightened  the  ignorant;  he  fought 
for  the  slave  and  the  oppressed;  he  defended 
those  who  were  in  danger;  he  lifted  those  who 
were  trodden  upon;  he  guided  those  who  had 
wandered  from  the  right,  and  his  strength  ber 
57 


came  the  strength  of  the  weak — he  was  all  men's 
friend,  and  all  men's  thoughts  now  turned  to 
him. 

Over  one  hundred  thousand  persons  formed 
in  line  and  passed  through  Plymonth  Church 
during  the  day  and  the  composition  of  the  mul- 
titude showed  how  popular  the  great  pastor  had 
been  with  all  classes.  Ladies  bred  in  luxury 
and  attired  in  its  trappings  stood  in  line  with 
their  less  fortunate  and  poorly  clad  sisters.  Pro- 
fessional men  and  wealthy  merchants  strove  in 
an  orderly  manner  with  laboring  men,  and  all  in 
turn  with  former  slaves,  for  a  position  that 
would  cut  short  the  wait  five  minutes.  All  were 
bent  on  the  same  mission  and  they  braved  the 
cold  winds  aud  incidental  inconveniences  with- 
out a  murmur.  It  took  hours  for  the  line  to 
move  its  entire  length,  but  patience  reigned.  It 
was  not  idle  curiosity  that  moved  the  crowds, 
for  the  difficulties  encountered  would  have  ex- 
tinguished that,  but  a  genuine  love  for  the  dead. 
When,  late  at  night,  the  doors  were  finally 
closed,  many  yet  remained  who  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  admission  to  the  church. 

The  Scene  in  Plymouth  Church. 

There  were  flowers — flowers  everywhere — in 
Plymouth  Church.  The  casket  looked  only  a 
a  mound  of  blossoms,  for  its  sides  and  supports 
were  hidden  in  a  swathing  band  of  roses  and  its 
top  was  lost  under  a  white  coverlid  of  lilies  of 


the  valley,  with  just  enough  green  to  break  the 
glare  of  the  white  mass.  The  platform  was  out 
of  sight,  and  all  that  could  be  seen  as  a  back- 
ground for  the  coffin  were  great  masses  of  buds, 
of  bloom,  of  blossoms — white  roses  and  pink, 
and  lilies  by  the  hundred.  Climbing  up  to  the 
gallery  rail,  the  rich  profusion  of  the  florist's  art 
extended,  and  then  seizing  the  organ  front  the 
greenery  ran  up,  with  great  callas  and  tiger  lilies 
flecking  the  green  ground  until  the  ornamenta- 
tion lost  itself  in  an  outburst  of  mingled  white 
and  green  close  under  the  ceiling  at  the  top  of 
the  organ  case.  Extending  away  along  the  sides 
of  the  church  ran  the  surplusage  of  love-sent 
blossoms. 

And  this  was  the  victory  of  death.  Flowers, 
sunlight,  music,  the  pageant  of  arms,  the  dip  of 
the  nation's  colors,  the  recital  of  his  glorious  life 
and  achievements,  the  voice  of  ten  thousand  in 
thanksgiving  and  prayer,  the  gathering  of  friends 
and  lovers,  the  clanging  of  great  bells  whose 
tongues  tell  only  of  the  passing  of  the  great,  the 
stopping  of  the  wheel  of  busy  life,  the  hush  up- 
on the  city — these  were  answers  to  the  boast 
of  the  Destroyer,  and  upon  the  lips  of  the  mighty 
dead  was  a  smile  of  love  and  of  peace  to  tell  all 
who  beheld  him  that  his  last  slumber  had  been 
blessed  and  was  welcome. 

During  the  life-time  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  there  were  many  notable  gatherings  in 
Plymouth  Church,  there  were  many  impressive 


scenes,  many  solemn  ceremonies;  but  never  in 
the  history  of  that  distinguished  place  of  wor- 
ship was  there  such  an  assemblage  as  on  the 
occasion  of  the  public  funeral  services  of  the 
great  divine.  All  creeds,  all  denominations, 
all  professions  and  walks  in  life  were  there 
to  do  honor  to  the  man  they  all  loved  and  re- 
spected while  he  lived  and  worked  in  their 
midst.  The  audience  included  some  of  the  most 
prominent  men  in  the  country,  who  had  made 
their  names  both  in  the  ministry  and  in  other 
pursuits. 

A   single   anecdote  related  at  his  funeral  il- 
lustrates the  character  of   the  great   man.     On 
the  last  Sunday  evening  of  his  labor  in  Plymouth 
Church,  he  remained  a  short  time  after  the  con- 
gregation  had     retired   from  it.     The  organist 
and  one  or  two  others  were  practicing  the  hymn, 
"I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 
Come  unto  me  and  rest." 

Mr.  Beecher,  doubtless,  with  that  tire  that 
follows  a  pastor's  Sunday  work,  remained  and 
listened.  Two  streets  urchins  were  prompted 
to  wander  into  the  building,  and  one  of 
them  was  standing  perhaps,  in  the  position  of  the 
boy  whom  Raphael  has  immortalized,  gazing  up 
at  the  organ.  The  old  man,  laying  his  hands  on 
the  boy's  head,  turned  his  face  upward  and 
kissed  him,  and  with  his  arms  about  the  two,  left 
the  scene  of  his  triumph,  his  trials  and  his  suc- 
cesses, forever.  It  was  a  fitting  close  to  a  grand 

60 


life,  the  old  man  of  genius  and  fame  shielding 
the  little  wanderers,  great  in  breasting  tra- 
ditional ways  and  prejudices,  great  also  in  the 
gesture,  so  like  him,  that  recognized,  as  did 
the  Master,  that  the  humblest  and  the  poorest 
were  his  brethren,  the  great  preacher  led  out  in- 
to the  night  by  the  little  nameless  waifs.  And 
so  he  passed  from  the  Church  of  his  labor  and 
his  triumphs  with  his  arm  about  the  boys,  pass- 
ing on  to  the  City  of  God,  where  he  hears  again 
the  familiar  voice  of  the  Master,  saying,  "  Of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 

His  Memory. 

The  character  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  will 
survive  his  presence  and  be  contemporaneous 
with  his  memory  here.  The  impetus  supplied 
by  his  capacities  will  yield  to  the  impetus  be- 
queathed by  his  example.  That  example  will 
work  in  ever  widening  circles  until  time  shall  be 
no  longer.  Men  will  find  it  easier  hereafter  to 
be  patient  and  trustful  and  gentle,  because  of 
the  great  heart  that  never  lost  courage,  kindness 
or  tranquillity,  which  loved  its  enemies,  which 
did  good  to  them  that  persecuted  it  and  which 
prayed  for  them  who  despitefully  used  it. 

The  deathless  part  of  him  will  forever  preach 
from  his  tomb  as  a  pulpit  and  from  his  books  as 
a  text  the  affluent  strength  arid  grace  of  a  mind 
that  mastered  many  knowledges,  of  a  heart  that 
spoke  no  evil  and  which,  when  reviled,  reviled 
61 


not  again,  and  of  a  nature  that  was  on  confiden* 
tial  terms  with  the  aspirations  of  the  race  and 
attuned  with  the  secrets  of  the  powers  of  the 
world  to  come. 

To  know  him  was  a  liberal  education.  To 
pass  under  the  spell  of  his  influence  was  to  rise 
above  what  was  little,  sordid,  demeaning  and 
perverting  and  to  fellowship  with  the  noblest 
forces  of  the  mind  and  heart,  projected  upon 
the  solution  of  the  problem  of  life,  or  upon  the 
interpretation  of  epochs,  or  of  cycles  of  history, 
or  employed  in  the  promotion  of  brotherhood 
among  men  and  in  the  realization  of  the  fond- 
ness and  the  fullness  of  the  fatherhood  of  God. 

Neither  was  he  the  slave  of  any  sense  of  con- 
sistency. He  grew.  He  advanced  from  truth 
to  truth  as  men  climb  from  crag  to  crag  till  they 
stand  on  the  mountain  top,  above  marsh  and  fen 
and  the  miasma  or  malaria  of  the  lower  world, 
where  the  air  and  the  soul  are  close  to  nature 
and  where  God  is  not  far  off.  As  a  whole  his 
life  was  a  series  of  paradoxes  in  one  sense;  but 
in  a  better  sense  it  was  an  evolution  from  high 
to  higher  forms  and  forces  and  it  broke  into 
benediction  as  his  ascending  soul  resumed  its 
work  beyond. 

He  was  not  a  man  of  occasion.  His  career 
was  not  punctuated  with  a  few  superlative 
achievements  and  otherwise  made  up  of  a  high 
or  low  level  of  uniform  effort.  He  was  keyed  to 
concert  pitch  always.  Great  utterances  came 


from  him,  but  they  were  as  likely  to  come  in  the 
little  prayer  meeting,  at  the  social  board,  in  a 
passing  talk  on  the  street  or  in  a  casual  car  or 
carriage  conversation  as  in  temples  of  worship 
or  in  forums  of  thought. 

And  he  did  and  said  nothing  which  in  part  or 
as  a  whole  was  not  stamped  with  his  own  genius. 
His  slightest  observation  had  the  quality  of  his 
entire  self  in  it,  just  as  the  rose,  broken  off  of 
the  overladen  bush,  carries  wherever  it  is  borne 
the  fragrance  which  it  did  not  lose  by  separation 
from  its  sisters. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  not  a  man  of  institutions. 
He  was  an  institution  in  himself.  The  metes 
and  bounds  of  denominations  did  not  contain 
him.  They  chafed  him.  He  was  a  poet  let  loose 
in  theology.  He  was  a  philosopher  who  sought 
truth  and  regarded  formulated  doctrines  as  the 
skin  of  truth  set  up  'and  stuffed.  He  was  a  hu- 
manitarian on  fire  to  save  men  by  love  and  not 
by  rote.  He  was  an  agitator  thundering  against 
the  lets  and  hindrances  which  systems,  as  they 
affected  him,  built  up  between  God  and  the  soul. 
He  was  indignant  at  those  who  would  stretch  the 
race  in  a  Procrustes  bed  of  creed  and  rules.  He 
felt  that  he  came  not  to  call  the  righteous  but 
sinners  to  repentance.  The  greater  the  sin,  the 
greater  the  need  of  Divine  pity,  he  thought.  He 
did  not  condemn  men.  He  sought  by  study  to 
account  for  men  and  then  by  study  to  find  means 
to  persuade  them  or  even  snare  them  into  good 


intents.  In  his  arsenal  were  myriad  devices  of 
spiritual  strategy  as  well  as  the  guns  that  woke 
the  thunders  of  the  hills  and  the  conscience  of 
the  hearts. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  of  hearts  will  do  for 
themselves  a  life  work,  as  they  feel  his  loss,  be- 
fore the  polar  and  precise  estimates  of  history 
are  begun.  His  will  be  a  name  in  chronicle  and 
tradition  and  memory  to  conjure  with  when  all 
who  knew  him  or  heard  him  have  followed  him 
into  the  silences.  Blessed  are  the  eyes  that  have 
seen  him,  and  blessed  are  the  ears  that  have  lis- 
tened to  him.  Blessed  are  the  lives  to  whom 
his  life  has  been  education,  incitement  and  in- 
spiration. 

But  to  him  are  silent  the  sounds  of  earth. 
Upon  his  raptured  ear  have  fallen  the  beautiful 
strains  of  the  Choir  Invisible.  From  the  top- 
most achievement  of  man,  a  life  lived  for  God 
and  for  humanity,  he  stepped  to  the  skies  as  the 
Gates  of  Pearl  swung  inward  at  his  approach. 


64 


RR0M  BEECHER. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  DEVIL. 

are  thousands  of  men  that  seem  to 
1  rejoice  in  nothing  else  half  so  much  as  in- 
iquity. The  moment  they  hear  the  servant  of 
the  devil  asking,  "  Have  you  heard  the  news 
about  A  and  B  ?  "  they  say,  "  What  is  it  ?  Sit 
down  and  tell  it  to  me;"  and  it  is  so  relishable 
to  reveal,  and  so  exquisite  to  hear,  that  A  and  B 
have  been  doing  wrong,  and  have  been  found 
out  in  that  wrong,  that  they  fairly  gloat  over  it! 
This  is  the  very  spirit  of  the  devil  himself. 

ADAM. 

WHAT  word  did  Adam  ever  speak,  or  what 
manly  thing  did  he  ever  perform,  before 
or  after  his  fall,  that  was  thought  worthy  of  a 
record  ?  He  has  a  name  in  the  Bible  and  that  is 
all.  His  name  i-s  coupled  with  one  event,  and 
that  is  all.  Besides  that  his  life  seems  to  have 
been  barren,  and  worth  not  one  word  of  recog- 
nition. Such  was  the  man  who  is  supposed  to 
have  been  perfect,  and  from  whom  the  whole 
race  have  descended.  The  race  has  come  up 
hill  every  single  step  from  the  day  of  Adam  to 
this  ! 


ADVICE  LIKE  HAIL-STONES. 

ADVICE  to  unwilling  men  is  like   hail-stones 
on  slate   roofs;  it  strikes  and   rattles  and 
rolls  down  and  does  them  no  good. 

THE  DRV-GOODS  STORE  AN  ENCVCLOI'/EDIA. 


I^HE  clerk  in  the  dry-goods  store  has  an  en- 
cyclopaedia on  his  shelves;  if  he  will  trace 
back  the  fabrics  to  the  country  from  whence 
they  came;  if  he  will  learn  of  the  soil,  the  peo- 
ple, and  of  their  history;  the  processes  of  ma- 
chinery by  which  the  fabric  was  constructed, 
and  a  thousand  things  that  suggest  themselves 
to  the  mind,  there  is  more  than  he  could  learn  in 
a  lifetime  in  a  store  of  dry-goods  even.  If  all 
the  knowledge  that  could  be  obtained  from  the 
diy-goods  in  Stewart's  store  were  searched  out, 
Appleton's  book-store  would  not  hold  the  books 
that  would  have  to  be  written.  But  if  the  clerk 
stands  behind  the  counter  all  day,  and  sees  in 
them  only  so  many  dry-goods,  they  are  not  half 
so  dry  as  he  is. 

LIFE  A  TRADE. 

LIFE  is  a  trade,  to  be  learned;  a  profession,  to 
be  gained  by  education;  an  art,  requiring 
long  drill. 

This  world  is  but  a  primary  school;  we  are 
learning  elements  here;  and  if  any  man  is  equal 
to  the  emergencies  of  life  under  all  circum- 
stances, he  is  out  of  his  sphere. 

This  is  a  world  where  men  are  coming  to  them- 
selves and  not  where  they  have  come  to  them- 
selves. 

God  did  not  make  men  perfect.  He  made 
them  pilgrims  after  perfection. 


CHILDREN. 

CHILDREN  are  God's  messengers  to  us.  They 
are  the  blossoms  of  human  life.     They  do 
not    earn    anything,   and    yet   how  rich  we  are ! 
How  rich  are  our  homes! 

A  LOWLY    HOME. 

MANY  men  are  born  in  a  garret  or  cellar,  who 
fly  out  of  it,  as  soon  as  fledged,  as  fine  as 
anybody.     A  lowly  home  has  reared   many  high 
natures. 

WORK,  GOD'S  BOUNTY. 

DO  not  let  any  man  repine  because  he  has  to 
work  from  morning   till  night.     Work  is 
God's  bounty. 

ON   CONSCIENCE. 

BUT  the  cultivation  of  conscience  is  an  art. 
Conscience  is  a  thing  that  is  learned.  No 
man  has  much  more  conscience  than  he  is 
trained  to.  So  the  minister  has  his  conscience; 
it  is  according  to  the  training  that  he  has  had; 
and  it  is  thought  to  be  fair  for  him  to  hunt  a 
brother  minister  for  heresy,  though  it  would  not 
be  fair  for  him  to  hunt  him  for  anything  else. 
A  lawyer  has  his  conscience.  It  is  sometimes 
very  high,  and  sometimes  it  is  very  low.  As  an 
average,  it  is  very  good.  The  doctor  has  his 
conscience,  and  his  patients  have  theirs.  Every- 
body has  his  conscience,  and  everybody's  con- 
science acts  according  to  certain  lines  to  which 
he  has  been  drilled  and  trained.  Right  and 
wrong  are  to  the  great  mass  of  men  as  letters 
and  words.  We  learn  how  to  spell,  and  if  a  man 
spells  wrong,  and  was  taught  in  that  way,  never- 

67 


theless,  it  is  his  way  of  spelling.  And  so  it  is 
with  men's  consciences.  Now,  I  aver  that  mere 
legislative  conscience  is  genius.  Not  one  man 
in  a  million  has  a  sense  of  what  is  right  and 
wrong  except  as  the  result  of  education  and  ex- 
perience. No  man  in  complex  circumstances 
has  a  conception  of  justice  and  rectitude  by  a 
legislative  conscience.  The  great  mass  of  men 
— teachers  and  the  taught — are  obliged  to  de- 
pend upon  the  revelations  of  experience  to  en- 
able them  to  determine  what  is  right  and  wrong. 
They  have  to  set  their  consciences  by  the  rule  of 
the  experiences  which  they  have  gone  through. 

BENEVOLENCE. 

13ENEVOLENCE  has  a  speaking  acquaint- 
£)  ance  with  almost  all  men's  faculties,  and 

that  is  all.     It  is  intimate  and  visits  in  only  one 

or  two  places  in  the  minds  of  men. 

GOD  RAINS  NOT  BY  THE  PINT. 

I  THANK  God  when  I  see  virtue  and  true 
piety  existing  outside  of  the  church,  as  well 
as  when  I  see  it  existing  inside  of  the  church. 
I  recogm'ze  the  hand  of  God  as  being  as  bounti- 
ful, and  I  recognize  His  administration  as  being 
as  broad  as  are  the  rains  or  as  is  the  sunshine. 
God  does  not  send  just  as  much  sunshine  as  we 
want  for  our  corn  and  rye  and  wheat.  It  shines 
on  stones  and  sticks  and  worms  and  bugs.  It 
pours  its  light  and  heat  down  upon  the  moun- 
tains and  rocks  and  everywhere.  God  rains  not 
by  the  pint  nor  by  the  quart,  but  by  the  conti- 
nent Whether  things  need  it  or  not,  He  needs 
to  pour  out  His  bounty,  that  He  may  relieve 
Himself  of  His  infinite  fullness. 


THE  COLORED  RACE. 

I  AM  bound  to  say  that  the  black  man  has 
proved  himself  worthy  of  the  trust  confided 
to  him.  Before  emancipation  the  black  man  was 
the  most  docile  laborer  that  ever  the  world  saw. 
During  the  war,  and  when  he  knew  that  liberty 
was  the  gage,  when  he  knew  that  the  battle  was 
whether  he  should  or  should  not  be  free,  al- 
though the  country  for  hundreds  of  miles  was 
stripped  bare  of  able-bodied  white  men,  and 
when  property  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  slave, 
arson  or  rapine  or  conspiracy  was  saved  to  the 
country,  and  no  uprising  took  place.  They  stood 
still,  conscious  of  their  power,  and  said:  "We 
will  see  what  God  will  do  for  us."  Such  a  his- 
tory has  no  parallel.  And  since  they  began  to 
vote,  after  their  emancipation,  I  beg  to  say  that 
they  have  voted  just  as  wisely  and  patriotically 
as  did  their  late  masters  before  emancipation. 

AMERICAN  STOCK. 

THE  best  blood  of  all  nations  will  ultimate  by 
and  by  in  a  better  race  than  the  primitive 
and  the  uncomplex  race,  mixing  new  strength 
and  alliances.  We  have  fortified  our  blood,  en- 
riched our  blood;  we  have  called  the  world  to 
be  our  father  and  the  father  of  our  children  and 
posterity,  and  there  never  was  a  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  this  nation  when  the  race  stock  had  in  it 
so  much  that  was  worth  the  study  of  the  physi- 
ologist and  philanthropist  as  to-day.  We  are 
enriched  beyond  the  power  of  gratitude.  I  for 
one  regard  all  the  inconveniences  of  foreign 
mixtures,  of  difference  of  language,  the  differ- 
ence of  customs,  the  difference  of  religion,  the 
difference  in  domestic  arrangement — I  regard  all 
these  inconveniences  as  a  trifle;  but  the  augmen- 

M 


tation  of  power,  of  breadth  of  manhood,  the 
promise  of  the  future,  is  past  all  computation, 
and  there  never  was,  there  never  began  to  be  in 
the  early  day  such  promise  for  physical  vigor 
and  enriched  life  as  there  is  to-day  upon  this 
continent. 

WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE. 

GOD  has  placed  in  woman's  hand  the  rudder 
of  time,  for  if  Eve  plucked  the  apple  that 
Adam  might  help  her  to  eat  it,  she  has  been  be- 
forehand with  him  ever  since  and  steered  him. 
The  household  that  has  a  bad  woman  may  have 
an  angel  for  a  husband,  but  he  is  helpless.  The 
household  that  has  a  brute  for  a  husband  is  safe 
if  the  woman  be  God's  own  woman.  Franklin 
said  that  a  man  is  what  his  wife  will  let  him  be. 
It  is  more  than  a  proverb,  that  the  children  are 
what  the  mother  makes  them.  She  is  the  legis- 
lator of  the  household;  she  is  the  judge  that  sits 
upon  the  throne  of  love.  All  severity  comes 
from  love  in  a  mother's  hand;  she  is  the  educa- 
tor; she  also  is  the  atonement  when  sins  and 
transgressions  have  brought  children  to  shame. 

AMERICAN  WOMEN. 

I  DECLARE  that  in  the  last  one  hundred 
years  woman,  who  before  had  brooded  and 
blossomed  in  aristocratic  circles,  has  now  come 
to  blossom  through  democratic  circles,  and  is  in 
America  to-day  undisputed  and  uncontradicted 
what  before  she  has  been  allowed  to  be  only 
when  she  had  a  coronet  upon  her  brow,  or  some 
sceptre  of  power  in  her  hand.  Not  only  is  she 
unveiled,  not  only  is  she  permitted  to  show  her 
face  where  men  most  do  congregate,  not  only  is 
she  a  power  in  the  silence  of  the  house,  but  in 

70 


the  church  a  teacher.  Paul  from  a  thousand 
years  ago  may  in  vain  now  say,  "  Let  not  your 
women  teach  in  the  church."  They  cannot  come 
there  without  being  teachers  and  silent  letters. 
They  are  the  books  and  epistles  known  and  read 
of  all  men.  They  have  come  to  that  degree  of 
knowledge,  they  have  come  to  that  breadth  of 
intellect  and  power,  they  have  learned  how  to 
dispose  of  that  primary  and  highest  gift,  moral 
intuition,  which  God  gave  to  them  in  excess, 
cheating  m^n,  they  have  come  to  such  influence 
and  grandeur  that  never  before  in  any  land,  cer- 
tainly never  in  our  own,  has  womanhood  attained 
such  authority  and  eminence  as  at  the  present 
day.  That  power  which  is  now  latent  and  ap- 
plied indirectly,  is  soon  to  fill  the  channels  that 
shall  be  direct  and  initial. 

ECONOMY  USED  IN  BRAINS. 

THE   reason,  I  take  it,  why  so  few  men  are 
made  on  a  large  pattern  is  that  it  is  not 
safe  to  trust  a  man  out  in  the  world  with  large 
brains.     There  is  great   economy   therefore  in 
that  direction. 

FRETTING. 

Fk  RETTING  is  a  perpetual  confession  of  weak- 
ness.    It  says,    "  I    want    to,  and  can't." 
Fretting  is  like  a  little  dog  pawing  and  whining 
at  a  door,  because  he  can't  get  in. 

VALUE  OF  WORK. 

OCCUPATION   will   go   far  toward  the   re- 
straint and  cure  of   all  gross  and  animal 
lusts.     When  the  salacious  devil  enters  a  man, 
let  him  put  spurs  to  his  industry  and  work  for 
his  life;  make  the  devil  pant  to  keep  up  with 

71 


you,  and  you  will  run  him  off  his  feet,  and  he 
will  be  glad  enough  to  let  you  alone.  Simple 
food,  hard  and  tiresome  work,  absorbing  occu- 
pation and  plenty  of  cold  bathing — that  will 
withstand  and  control  a  vast  amount  of  evil  in- 
clination. Man  is  to  study  for  these  things,  and 
then  when  you  have  used  all  these  means,  you 
may  pray.  But  to  set  yourself  to  pray,  and  then 
go  and  gorge  yourself  with  stimulating  foods 
and  drinks,  and  not  in  any  way  to  avail  yourself 
of  the  proper  means,  is  to  mock  God  and  cheat 
your  own  soul.  Take  care  of  yourself  first,  and 
then  pray  afterward. 

MAN  NEEDS  BREAKING  IN. 

AS  without  breaking,  the  colt  is  worthless,  so 
man,  who  is  a  wild  colt  indeed,  in  order  to 
be  useful,  needs  more  breaking,  more  harnessing 
and  more  hard  work. 

PIETY  LIKE  A  CROWN. 

THERE  are  good  and  perfectional  Christians 
")  whose  piety  is  like  a  crown,  who,  putting 
it  on  their  heads,  say  "  I  am  a  Christian;"  tak- 
ing it  off,  say,  "I  am  a  Christian;  I  have  only 
left  my  Christianity  at  home."  And  then  they 
go  out  into  the  world,  and  do  all  kinds  of  dirty 
and  mean  work;  going  back  again,  put  on  the 
crown,  and  say,  "I  am  a  Christian  again!"  If 
you  are  a  Christian,  you  go  to  bed  a  Christian 
and  get  up  a  Christian;  you  are  a  Christian  at 
home,  in  your  store,  and  everywhere. 


H 


HE  KEPT  SUNDAY. 

ERE  is  a  man  who  goes  to  the  judgment, 
and  claims  to  have  been  a  man  of  unex- 

72 


ceptionable  piety.  He  bears  witness  that  he 
never  violated  the  Sabbath  day;  that  he  never 
spoke  loud  or  laughed  on  Sunday;  that  he  never 
did  any  secular  work  on  Sunday;  that  he  never 
blacked  his  boots,  or  shaved  or  cooked  on  Sun- 
day; that  he  never  rode  in  the  cars  or  on  the 
boats  on  Sunday.  He  was  always  very  scrupu- 
lous about  what  he  did  on  Sunday.  On  any 
other  day  he  would  not  hesitate  to  take  advan- 
tage of  his  fellow-men;  he  would  not  hesitate  to 
gouge  the  poor  woman  that  put  his  carpet  down; 
he  would  not  hesitate  to  cheat  his  customers; 
but,  then,  he  kept  Sunday. 

THE  GOLD  OF  PERFORMANCE. 

MEN  do  not  take  a  bank-bill  simply  because 
it  is  a  bank-bill.  They  see  whether  it  is  a 
genuine  bill,  and  whether  the  bank  it  is  on  is 
able  to  pay;  and  if  it  is  a  good  bill,  and  on  a 
good  bank,  they  take  it  on  account  of  the  gold 
there  is  behind  it.  And  so  with  professors  of 
religion.  When  a  man  knows  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  bogus  religion,  he  scrutinizes  professors 
to  know  whether  they  are  counterfeit.  He  wants 
to  know  whether  there  is  the  gold  of  perform- 
ance behind  them. 

DANGERS  GOD'S  WHETSTONES. 

THE  world  would  not  be  fit  to  live  in  if  there 
were  not  dangers  in  it.    Dangers  are  God's 
whetstones  with  which  to  keep  men  sharp. 

DREAMERS. 

THERE  are  men  who  live  in  their  imagina- 
tion.    They  dream  all  their  life  long.     On 
a  special  impulse  they  open  their  eyes,  and  see 
things  as   they  are;   but  the  moment  the  hard, 

73 


practical  necessity  which  disturbs  them  has 
given  way,  and  they  are  at  liberty  to  do  what 
they  love  to  do  best,  back  they  sink  into  day 
dreams,  and  dream  up,  and  down,  and  out  both 
ways! 

A  MOTHER'S  MEMORY. 

IF  I  were  to  see  a  son  whose  mother's  memory 
was,  in  his  presence,  treated  with  foul  scorn 
and  slander,  that  felt  no  quickening  of  his  pulse, 
and  that  felt  no  up-rising  of  soul-indignation,  I 
should  almost  believe  that  the  mother  was  all 
that  the  slanderer  had  represented  her  to  be,  and 
that  this  was  the  bastard  offspring. 

EYE  AND  EAR  HUNGER. 

F)EOPLE  should  be  hungry  with  the  eye  and 
1  the  ear  as  well  as  with  the  mouth.  If  all  a 
man's  necessaries  of  life  go  into  the  porthole  of 
the  stomach,  it  is  a  bad  sign. 

POLITENESS. 

TRUE  politeness  can  rest  only  in  a  kind  dis- 
position; though  its  signs  and  names  may 
be  counterfeited,  yet  they  are  never  so  good  as 
those  that  are  uncounterfeited.  The  man  who 
is  only  selfish  and  indifferent  at  heart  can  not  be 
a  gentleman.  As  to  those  gentlemanly  bears 
that  infest  society,  those  bipedal  brutes  that 
walk  about,  flinging  their  unsavory  manners  in 
our  midst,  they  are  beneath  our  notice. 

HEALTH— GOOD  AND  BAD. 

IT  is  not  a  good  thing  to  have  ill-health;  but 
it  is  a  great  deal  better  to  have  bbdily  ail- 
ments that  work  out  manhood,  than  good  health 
that  works  out  imbecility. 

74 


DON'T  JUMf  INTO  A  LIE. 

BUT  it  is  said  that  parents  may  deceive  their 
children  when  their  inquisitiveness  leads 
them  to  ask  about  things  which  they  should  not 
know.  If  they  ask  about  things  which  they 
should  not  know,  then  tell  them  that  they  should 
not  know.  "But,"  people  say,  "a  child  puts  a 
parent  in  such  a  disagreeable  position  some- 
times." Well,  you  hadn't  better  jump  out  of  it 
into  a  lie. 

WOULD  TO  GOD  IT  MIGHT. 

THE  fears  of  men  are  groundless  in  regard  to 
the  results  of  scientific  investigation.  They 
say,  "  If  you  develop  this  or  that  doctrine,  origi- 
nal sin  will  go  under."     Would  to  God  that  it 
might.  ' 

DEATH  SWEET  AS  FLOWERS. 

DEATH  is  as  sweet  as  flowers  are.  It  is  as 
blessed  as  bird-singing  in  spring.  I  never 
hear  of  the  death  of  any  one  who  is  ready  to  die, 
that  my  heart  does  not  sing  like  a  harp.  I  am 
sorry  for  those  that  are  left  behind,  but  not  for 
those  who  have  gone  before. 

As  I  grow  older  and  come  nearer  to  death,  I 
look  upon  it  more  and  more  with  complacent 
joy,  and  out  of  every  longing  I  hear  God  say: 
"O,  trusting  hungering  one,  come  to  me."  What 
the  other  life  will  bring  I  know  not,  only  that  I 
shall  awake  in  God's  likeness  and  see  him  as  He 
is. 

Beat  on,  then,  O  heart,  and  yearn  for  dying. 
I  have  drunk  at  many  a  fountain,  but  thirst  came 
again;  I  have  fed  at  many  a  bounteous  table, but 
hunger  returned;  I  have  seen  many  bright  and 
lovely  things,  but  while  I  gazed  their  lustre  faded. 

75 


There  is  nothing  here  that  can  give  me  rest,  but 
when  I  behold  thee,  O  God,  I  shall  be  satisfied. 

MANY  DEAD  WHO  DO  NOT  KNOW   IT. 

WHEN  a  man   feels  that  he  has  completed 
his  growth  in  life,  he  has  come  to  an  end, 
and  is  dead.     There  be  many  men  who  are  dead 
and  do  not  know  it. 

THE  RACE  WORKING  UPWARD. 

OOMETHING  has  steadily  worked,  so  that 
v3  the  way  of  men  has  grown  finer  and  finer. 
Something  has  had  a  power  working  the  way  of 
the  human  race  upward,  /call  it  God. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  CHEERFULNESS. 

DON'T  mope.  Be  young  as  long  as  you 
live.  Laugh  a  good  deal.  Frolic  every 
day.  A  low  tone  of  mind  is  unhealthy.  A 
lawyer  who  works  ten  months  in  the  year  and 
then  for  two  solid  months  amuses  himself,  will 
last  twice  as  long  as  if  he  took  no  recreation. 
Humor  usually  tends  towards  good  nature,  and 
everything  that  tends  towards  good  nature  tends 
towards  good  grace. 

Men  have  come  to  think  that  tears  are  more 
sacred  than  smiles.  No!  Laughing  is  as  divine 
as  crying.  If  laughing's  a  sin,  I  don't  see  what 
the  Lord  let's  so  many  funny  things  happen  for. 
Having  wit  and  buoyancy  of  spirits,  let  them 
flash  out  in  services  of  religion.  Don't  consider 
it  necessary  to  rake  them  up  and  hide  them. 

Humor  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  grace  most 
flourishes. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  ARK. 

IT  was  not  God's  plan  that  the  ark  should  be 
the  refuge  of  the  human   race  longer  than 

76 


until  the  deluge  had  passed  away;  but  if  Noah 
and  his  descendants  had  afterward  built  arks 
upon  the  hills  and  rocks,  and  attempted  to  crowd 
all  the  people  and  animals  on  the  earth  into 
them,  their  folly  would  not  have  been  greater 
than  is  that  of  those  who  are  attempting  to 
crowd  back  the  gathering  forces  of  the  nations 
into  institutions,  which  were  only  designed  to 
give  them  a  temporary  ferriage  while  the  deluge 
of  an  immoral  common  sense  should  last. 

NARROW  MEN. 

NO  man  can  be  very  broad  who  will  build  with 
nothing  but  that  which  he  quarries  from 
himself.    There  are  men  enough  who  think  when 
they  hear  themselves  echoed  that  a  god  spoke. 

THE  ANGELS'  SONG. 

THE  song  of  the  angels  above  Bethlehem  was 
caught  up  on  earth,  and  has  never  ceased. 
Yearly  its  burden  swells  and  mounts  heavenward 
from  a  vaster  host,  and  to-day  millions  of  hearts 
are  singing,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest  and 
on  earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men." 

SINGING  FLOWERS. 

WHAT  a  pity  flowers  can  utter  no  sound  ! 
A  singing   rose,   a   whispering   violet,    a 
murmuring  honeysuckle  !     O,  what  a  rare  and 
exquisite  miracle  would  these  be  ! 

A  TYPE  OF  THOUSANDS. 

THERE  was  a  man,  in  the  town  where  I  was 
born,  who  used  to  steal  all  his  fire-wood. 
He  would  get  up  on  cold  nights,  and  go  and 
take  it  from  his  neighbors'  wood  piles.     A  com- 
putation was  made,  and  it  was  ascertained  that 

77 


he  spent  more  time,  and  worked  harder,  to  g.-t 
his  fuel,  than  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  if 
he  had  earned  it  in  an  honest  way,  and  at  ordi- 
nary wages.  And  this  thief  was  a  type  of  thou- 
sands of  men  who  work  a  great  deal  harder  to 
please  the  devil  than  they  would  have  to  work 
to  please  God. 

AN  EXQUISITE  LIE. 

NOW,  suppose  I  should  fall  into  a  controversy 
with  a  man,  and  should  adroitly  deceive 
him;  and  suppose,  after  having  done  it,  I  should 
come  before  you,  and  say,  "  I  told  an  exquisite 
lie  yesterday.  I  did  not  tell  it  selfishly,  how- 
ever; I  told  it  for  a  wise  purpose,  and  it  inured 
to  the  benefit  of  the  truth."  How  many  of  you 
would  admire  me  for  owning  that  I  had  told  a 
•  ermissible  lie  ? 

IMAGINARY  EVILS. 

WHY  imagine  evils  that  never  will  happen, 
and  reflect  with  self-reproach  upon  things 
that  might  have  been  better  done  ? 

RICH  BY  HONEST  INDUSTRY. 

I  LIKE  to  see  a  hard  working  honest  man, 
especially  if  he  has  had  some  dirty  calling — 
a  butcher,  a  tallow  chandler,  or  a  dealer  in  fish 
oil:  I  like  to  see  such  a  man,  when  by  dint  of 
honest  industry  he  gets  rich,  build  him  a  house 
in  the  best  neighborhood  in  the  place,  and  build 
it  so  that  everybody  says,  "O,  what  a  fine  house; 
it  is  better  taste  than  we  expected."  That  does 
me  good,  makes  me  fat  to  the  very  marrow. 

WHO  ARE  BLESSED. 

'  T  JE  opened  his  mouth,  and  taught  them, 
11     saying,  Blessed  are" — oh,  who?— "the 

78 


poor  in  spirit:  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
Blessed  are  they  that"  mourn:  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. Blessed  are  the  meek  "  —  what  !  those 
spiritless  fellows,  with  white  faces,  that  go  about 
afraid  to  say  their  soul  is  their  own  ? 

TRUTH  LIKE  A  BAIT 

A  TEACHING-TRUTH    is   like    bait   on   a 
hook;  it  must  be  such  a  bait  as  fish  will 
take,  and  it  must  be  on  such  a  hook  as  will  hold 
the  fish. 

DYING  GRACE. 

GOD  won't  give  us  dying  grace  till  it's  time  to 
die.     What's  the  use  of  trying  to  feel  like 
dying  when  you're  not  dying,  nor  anywhere  near 
it? 


SINCERITY. 


Q 


INCERITY  is  a  very  good  thing,  but  it  can- 
not  make  grain  out  of  chaff.  And  that 
man  who  thinks  that  it  makes  no  difference  what 
he  believes  so  long  as  he  is  sincere,  is  a  chaff 
farmer. 

EXAMPLE. 

I  REMEMBER  a  poor  colored  man  who,  when 
I  was  a  boy  twelve  years  old,  made  a  deeper 
impression  on  my  mind  of  the  goodness  of  God, 
than  all  the  sermons  to  which  I  had  ever  listened; 
and  if  there  was  ever  a  sermon-fed  child,  I  was 
one.  Nothing  took  so  firm  a  hold  upon  my 
higher  nature  as  did  the  influence  of  that  con- 
sistent, praying,  psalm-singing,  rejoicing  colored 
man,  who  taught  me  to  work  on  the  farm,  and 
to  know  that  there  was  something  in  religion. 

78 


0 


RELIGIOUS  HYENAS. 

AND  who  does  not  know  that  around  every 
church  there  are  just  such  hyenas  whose 
Deads  are  like  to  become  a  fountain  of  tears  at 
the  transgressions  of  reputable  Christians? 

TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPINIONS. 

PINIONS  are  not  true  simply  because  they 
are  held  to  be  true  in  your  day. 

PERSONAL  BITTERNESS. 

IF  at  any  time  I  have  seemed  to  you  or  to 
others  to  run  with  undue  severity  upon  men, 
or  churches,  or  orders  of  men,  or  institutions,  it 
lias  never  been  from  any  personal  bitterness.  I 
do  not  think  I  feel  personal  bitterness  toward 
any  man.  Nor  do  I  ever  feel  angry,  except 
when  I  see  one  man  injuring  another.  I  confess 
that  sometimes,  when  I  see  a  strong  man  taking 
advantage  of  a  weaker  one,  I  do  feel  an  indigna- 
tion which  has  a  little  rancor  in  it;  but  I  try  to 
pray  that  down. 

WINTER. 

/^OME,  bountiful  winter,  with  snows  that  last 
\_s  till  April  serves  its  warmth,  and  bluebirds 
warble  softly  in  the  cherry  trees,  and  bouncing 
robins  make  the  morning  and  evening  melodious. 

DISHONESTY. 

DISHONESTY  is  an  atmosphere.    If  it  comes 
into  one  apartment    it   penetrates  all   the 


'     PROFANITY  AMONG  WOMEN. 

WAS    going   to   speak    of    swearing    among 
women.     The  only  reason  why  I  will  not  is 

80 


that  I  do  not  wish  the  young  people  to  know 
that  such  a  thing  ever  took  place.  I  have  writ- 
ten something  upon  this  subject,  which  I  shall 
withhold,  but  I  will  show  it  to  those  who  wish 
to  see  it,  if  they  will  call  upon  me. 

NATURE  SPEAKS  OF  GOD. 

I  SAY  that  we  are  bringing  our  children  up 
vulgarly,  and  infidelly,  when  we  teach  them 
to  associate  God  with  the  Bible,  with  churches, 
and  with  other  things  that  are  counted  sacred  in 
the  world,  and  do  not  teach  them  to  associate 
Him  with  the  works  of  nature.  I  think  it  is 
much  easier  to  think  of  the  rugged  mountain, 
the  brilliant  stars,  and  the  effulgent  sun,  as  speak- 
ing of  God,  than  to  think  of  dumb  churches  as 
speaking  of  Him. 

GOD'S  PITY. 

I  WAS  a  child  of  teaching  and  prayer;  I  was 
reared  in  the  household  of  faith ;  I  knew  the 
Catechism  as  it  was  taught;  I  was  instructed  in 
the  Scriptures  as  they  were  expounded  from  the 
pulpit,  and  read  by  men;  and  yet,  till  after  I  was 
twenty-one  years  old,  I  groped  without  the 
knowledge  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  I  know  not 
what  the  tablets  of  eternity  have  written  down, 
but  I  think  that  when  I  stand  in  Zion  and  before 
God,  the  brightest  thing  which  I  shall  look  back 
upon  will  be  that  blessed  morning  of  May,  when 
it  pleased  God  to  reveal  to  my  wandering  soul 
the  idea  that  it  was  His  nature  to  love  a  man  in 
his  sins  for  the  sake  of  helping  him  out  of  them; 
that  he  did  not  do  it  out  of  compliment  to  Christ, 
or  to  a  law,  or  a  plan  of  salvation,  but  from  the 
fullness  of  his  great  heart;  that  he  was  a  Being 
not  made  mad  by  sin,  but  sorry;  that  He  was  not 

81 


furious  with  wrath  toward  the  sinner,  but  pitied 
him — in  short,  that  He  felt  toward  me  as  my 
mother  felt  toward  me,  to  whose  eyes  my  wrong 
doing  brought  tears,  who  never  pressed  me  so 
close  to  her  as  when  I  had  done  wrong,  and  who 
would  fain,  with  her  yearning  love,  lift  me  out 
of  trouble. 

SELF-EXAMINATION. 

HOW  many  men  have  been  ruined  by  self- 
examination  !  And  yet,  tracts  and  books 
are  published,  and  sermons  are  preached,  and 
exhortations  are  made,  without  number,  urging 
men  to  self-examination,  as  if  fantasy  must  run 
into  folly.  Men  are  set  to  write  journals.  I 
know  who  invented  that  trick.  The  devil  in- 
vented it!  It  is  a  device  of  his  to  tempt  men. 

JUICY  IN  THEIR  INTELLECT. 

WHEN  a  man  has  certain  traits  which  con- 
stitute the  leading  features  of  his  charac- 
ter, we  call  those  traits  his  disposition.  Thus, 
there  are  some  men  that  live  in  their  thoughts. 
They  are  dry  everywhere  except  in  their  intel- 
lect; but  there  they  are  juicy. 

THE  IRISH  RACE. 

THE  Irish  people  stand  alone.     They  are  the 
most   mercurial,    the   most   generous,    the 
most  distinguished  for  men  of  genius,  the  most 
admirable  creatures  that  ever  troubled  the  earth. 

ENTHUSIASM. 

T7NTHUSIASM  is  good  to  raise  men  upon, 
l~j  but  discipline  is  the  only  thing  to  fight  on. 


THE  ANIMAL  NATURE. 

THE  trouble   with    men    does   not   generally 
spring  from  their  reason.     It  is  the  animal 
side  of  man  that  fills  life  with  all  its  trials,  and 
business  with  all  its  hindrances. 

GOD'S  PARABLES. 

IN  teaching  your  children,  you  have  to  invent 
little  parables,  simple  stories;  you  have  to 
go  into  their  play-houses,  and  make  use  of  the 
things  you  find  there,  likening  them  to  the  things 
you  wish  to  teach.  You  have  to  do  just  what 
God  did  in  the  formation  of  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion. You  are  obliged  to  imagine  conditions  in 
the  sphere  of  the  child's  playthings,  his  cakes, 
his  tops,  his  books,  his  carriages,  his  knife,  or 
his  other  trinkets,  that  shall  interpret  to  him,  by 
his  own  knowledge,  the  things  you  wish  to  instil 
into  his  mind. 

COMMON  MARTYRS. 

HPHE  world  will  never  advance  rapidly  until 
1  we  have  more  martyrs  in  common  things, 
more  witnesses  in  common  places,  more  men 
who  practice  ten  thousand  little  self-denials  and 
duties. 

THE  PRESENT  AGE. 

WE  of  this  age  have  come  to  the  mountain 
top,  as  yet  we  can  see  only  the  promise 
land  of  the  future.  Our  children  shall  go  over 
to  the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  Great 
has  been  the  past !  The  future  shall  yet  be 
greater. 

LIVING  PEACEABLY. 

E  have  no  right  to  be  a  cause  of  disturb- 
ance by  living  in  that  part  of  our  nature 


w 


which  tends  to  interfere  with  the  happiness  or 
welfare  of  our  fellow-men.  No  man  has  a  right 
in  any  way  to  annoy  others.  No  man  has  a  right 
to  thrust  himself  or  his  affairs  forward  in  such  a 
way  that  men  are  compelled  to  consider  him. 

DECEPTION. 

THE  only  way  in  which  we  can  get  permission 
to  indulge  in  equivocations,  and  evasions, 
and  deceptions,  which  we  refuse  to  baptize  lies, 
as  they  ought  to  be  baptized,  is  by  running  our 
moral  character  down  at  the  heel. 

HELL  KNOWS  THE  REST. 

HOW  many  more  go  on  gathering  darkness  at 
every  step,  their  feet  treading  more  and 
more  slippery  and  rough  ways,  till  their  charac- 
ter is  gone.  Their  reputation  soon  follows;  with 
trustworthiness  all  trust  ceases;  life  becomes  a 
system  of  dodging  expedients;  vice  becomes 
crime,  and  crime  becomes  destruction;  and  be- 
fore half  their  days  are  ended,  the  terrible  drama 
is  enacted  and  the  curtain  falls,  and — Hell 
knows  the  rest. 

PRIDE. 

ONE  man  ridicules  his  next-door  neighbor  on 
account  of  his  pride;  but  he  would  not 
have  known  anything  about  that  neighbor's  pride 
if  he  had  not  carried  his  own  head  so  high  that 
he  could  look  over  the  fence  and  see  how  proud 
he  was. 

HEADS  LIKE  GARRETS. 

U  \7ES;  folks'  heads  are  pretty  much  like  their 
1      garrets,  where  all  the  rubbish  and  broken 
things  they've  no  use  for  down  stairs  are  stored 
away." 

84 


SHOWER-BATH  OF  GOLD. 

THERE  is  a  vague  impression  in  the  minds 
of  men  who  long  for  property,  that  it  may 
reward  some  rare  stroke  of  skill,  that  it  may  turn 
up  at  one  single  more  spadeful,  just  as  deluded 
treasure-seekers,  digging  at  midnight  under  a 
glimmering  lantern,  expect  that  each  next  spade- 
thrust  will  strike  upon  an  iron  chest  or  crash 
into  an  earthen  pot  full  of  coin.  These  men 
think  there  is  such  a  thing  as  dexterity  of  man- 
agement, by  which  wealth  may  be  suddenly  ob- 
tained, and  they  think  that  a  hit  in  the  nick  of 
time  will  bring  down  a  whole  shower-bath  of 
gold. 

FREEDOM  OF  THOUGHT. 

IF  you  believe  that  you  have  the  truth,  you  are 
the  one  above  every  other  who  can  afford  to 
let  every  other  one  think  freely. 

WORK  AND  LAZINESS. 

IT  ,is  not  what  a  man  finds  that  does  him  good, 
but  what  he  does.    Active  little  is  better  than 
lazy  much. 

GOD'S  WHISPERS. 

I   BELIEVE  there  are  whispers  of  God  to  the 
soul.     I  do  not  think  the  Holy  Ghost  is  pa- 
raded in  the  Bible  merely  to  make  up  the  num- 
ber three  in  the  Godhead. 

FALSE  IDEAS  OF  GOD. 

IF  men  have  been  bitten  by  this  infernal  infi- 
delity, if  they  have  come  to  entertain  this 
false  idea,  that  God  is  so  busy  taking  care  of  this 
world,  like  a  boy  driving  a  hoop  through  the 
street,  who  expects  everybody  to  get  out  of  his 


way:  if  men  have  come  to  suppose  that  God  is 
thus  busy,  so  that  he  cannot  take  care  of  the  hu- 
man beings  he  has  created,  let  them  get  out  of 
it  as  soon  as  possible. 

LARGE  BUILDINGS. 

I  THINK,  the  largest  buildings  in  this  world, 
probably,  that  hold  anything,  are  the  Egyp- 
tian pyramids,  which  hold  a  little  king's  dust. 
Next  to  them,  I  suppose,  some  of  the  largest 
houses  are  those  which  hold  the  dust  of  rich 
men  who  have  not  yet  hopped  out  of  them. 

COURTING. 

OH,  that  men  could  be  kept  courting  all  the 
days   of    their   life.      What   a   school   the 
school  of  love  is  ! 

ENCOURAGEMENT. 

IT  is  a  great  deal  better  for  a  Christian  man  to 
encourage  his  fellows  in  well-doing,  than  to 
punish  them  for  wrong-thinking. 

CALVINISTS,  PURITANS  AND  PRESBYTERIANS. 

MEN  may  talk  as  much  as  they  please  against 
the  Calvinists,  and  Puritans,  and  Presby- 
terians; but  you  will  find  that  when  they  want 
to  make  an  investment  they  have  no  objection 
to  Calvinism,  or  Puritanism,  or  Presbyterianism. 
They  know  that  where  these  systems  prevail, 
where  the  doctrine  of  man's  obligation  to  God 
and  men  is  taught  and  practiced,  there  their 
capital  may  be  safely  invested. 

PROFESSION  AND  PRACTICE. 

EN  whose  life  is  yet  hot  with  indignation 
at  the  oppression   which  they  suffered  in 

86 


M 


their  own  land,  when  they  come  to  America  are 
marked,  above  all  others,  for  arrogance  and  cru- 
elty to  those  that  are  put  under  them.  There  is 
not  another  nation  in  this  world  that  has  said  so 
much,  and  said  it  so  eloquently,  against  dynastic 
oppressions,  as  the  Irish,  and  if  there  is  a  nation 
that  is  meaner  than  any  other  in  their  treatment 
of  their  inferiors,  it  is  the  Irish.  It  is  their 
shame.  I  am  sorry  that  it  is  so,  for  the  Irish 
have  too  many  good  traits  to  be  disfigured  by 
this  one  hateful  one. 


M 


NATURE'S  LAWS. 

EN  get  along  very  fairly  with  natural  laws 
everywhere  outside  of  their  own  stomachs. 

IN  THEIR  OWN  JAIL. 

BUILD   yourselves  up  first,  and   then    your 
property.    There  are  many  men  who  build 
up  their  fortune  first,  and  build  themselves  in  it, 
so  that  when  the  roof  is  on  they  are  in  their  own 
jail,  and  cannot  get  out. 

ABUNDANCE  NOT  HAPPINESS. 

A  MAN  may  be  a  millionaire,  and  yet  be  so 
miserable  as  to  groan  all  day  and  curse  all 
night.  A  man  may  have  all  the  outside  things 
which  the  world  affords,  and  yet  not  be  a  happy 
man.  One  man  may  have  a  chest  full  of  excel- 
lent tools,  and  be  a  bungling  workman;  while 
another  man  may  have  nothing  but  a  jack-knife, 
and  be  a  skillful  workman. 

SECTARIAN  SABBATHS. 

THE  Sabbath  is  not  that  conventional,   sec- 
tarian   Sunday  which  makes  a  man   sigh 
when  he  wakes  up,  and  say,  "  Oh,  it  is  Sunday 

87 


morning!  "  and  the  pleasantest  feature  of  which 
is  the  going  down  of  the  sun. 

IMPURE  BOOKS. 

BOOKS  that  poison  the  imagination  and  un- 
settle the  moral  principles  of  men  are  mul- 
titudinous, and  forever  multiplying;  subterranean 
libraries  hawked  in  secret,  sold  from  under  the 
skirts,  clandestinely  read;  books  that,  like  ver- 
min, hide  from  sight  by  day  in  cracks  and  crev- 
ices, and  creep  out  in  darkness  and  at  night  to 
suck  the  very  blood  of  virtue.  And  this  is  a 
business;  to  write  them,  to  print  them,  to  bind 
them,  to  sell  them  and  to  hawk  and  dispense 
them.  There  are  whole  classes  of  men,  and  of 
women — God  have  mercy  on  the  world! 

TRUE    HEROISM. 

IT  is  not  the  general,  who  knows  that  he  is  to 
stand  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  is  the 
more  heroic.  It  is  the  poor  soldier  who  knows 
that  he  shall  probably  fall  in  battle  without  a 
record,  and  yet  who  puts  his  life  in  peril  for  his 
country. 

THE  BEST   HOUSEHOLD. 

THE  best  household  is  not  that  where  they 
have  the  most  hallelujah,  but  where  they 
have  the  most  order  and  system  and  kindness. 

PUBLIC  EDUCATION. 

GIVE   the    Mayor  less.     Give  the  Aldermen 
less.     Reduce  salaries  everywhere,  but  in- 
crease them  in  schools. 

WOMEN  WILL  VOTE. 

E  permit  the  lame,  the  halt,  and  the  blind 
to  go  to  the  ballot-box;    we  permit  the 

ee 


W 


foreigner  and  the  black  man,  the  slave  and  the 
freeman  to  partake  of  the  suffrage;  there  is  but 
one  thing  left  out,  and  that  is  the  mother  that 
taught  us,  and  the  wife  that  is  thought  worthy  to 
walk  side  by  side  with  us.  It  is  woman  that  is 
put  lower  than  the  slave,  lower  than  the  ignorant 
foreigner.  She  is  put  among  the  paupers  whom 
the  law  won't  allow  to  vote,  among  the  insane 
whom  the  law  won't  allow  to  vote.  But  the  days 
are  numbered  in  which  this  can  take  place,  and 
she  too  will  vote.  As  in  a  hundred  years  suffrage 
has  extended  its  bonds  until  it  now  includes  the 
whole  population,  in  another  hundred  years  every- 
thing yill  vote,  unless  it  be  the  power  of  the 
loom,  and  locomotive,  and  watch,  and  I  some- 
times think,  looking  at  these  machines  and  their 
performances,  that  they  too  ought  to  vote. 

RATHER    TRUST   THE  PEOPLE. 

I  WOULD,  within  the  bounds  of  their  knowl- 
edge, rather  trust  the  moral  judgment  and 
common  sense  of  the  millions  of  the  common 
people  than  the  special  knowledge  of  any  hundred 
of  the  best  trained  geniuses  that  there  are  in  the 
land.  This  is  not  true  in  respect  to  those  de- 
partments of  knowledge  which  the  common 
people  have  never  reached.  There  is  no  common 
sense  in  astronomy,  because  there  is  no  common 
knowledge  in  astronomy.  The  same  is  also  true 
of  engineering;  but  in  that  whole  vast  realm  of 
questions  which  do  come  down  to  men's  board 
and  bosoms,  the  moral  sense  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  common  people,  is  more  reliable  than  the 
judgment  of  the  few.  In  all  those  questions 
there  is  a  common  conscience  and  a  common 
moral  sense;  and  I  say  that  the  average  moral 
sense  and  conscience  of  the  community  never 


were  so  high  as  they  are  to-day — and  to-day  at 
such  a  height  in  the  common  people  as  to  be 
safer  in  them  than  in  any  class  in  the  community. 

RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE. 

WHEN  the  Ohio  River  begins  to  overflow  and 
overflow,  the  big  Miami  bottoms  are  one 
sheeted  field  of  water,  and  where  I  once  lived — 
in  Lawrenceburg,  Indiana — I  could  take  a  boat 
and  go  25  miles  straight  across  the  country,  so 
vast  was  the  volume.  Now,  suppose  a  man  had 
taken  a  skiff  and  gone  out  over  the  fields  and 
plumbed  the  depth  and  found  only  5  feet  of 
water,  and  had  said  "Ah!  only  five  feet  of  water, 
and  the  Ohio  had  forty  feet."  Well  the  Ohio  has 
not  shrunk  one  inch.  There  are  forty  feet  there 
and  there  are  5  feet  everywhere  else.  Religion 
used  to  be  in  the  church  pretty  much  and  men 
used  to  have  to  measure  the  church  in  order  to 
know  how  deep  it  was,  but  there  has  been  rain 
on  the  mountains  and  the  moral  feeling  that  ex- 
ists in  the  community  and  in  the  world  has  over- 
flowed the  bounds  of  the  church,  and  you  can't 
measure  the  religious  life  or  the  religious  impulse 
of  this  people  unless  you  measure  their  philan- 
thropy, their  household  virtue,  and  the  general 
good-will  that  prevails  between  classes  and  com- 
munities. The  church  is  not  less  than  it  has 
been,  it  is  more  than  it  ever  was,  but  outside  of 
it  also  there  is  a  vast  volume  of  that  which  can 
be  registered  under  no  head  so  well  as  under 
that  of  religious  influence. 

DOUBLE  FOOLS. 

THERE  are  thousands  of  persons  that  are 
doing  but  little  in  the  present,  and  nothing 
for  the  future,  who  are  always  looking  back  upon 

90 


the  past,  and  saying,  "Oh,  if  I  had  done  so  and 
so  !  "  or,  "  Oh,  if  I  had  not  done  so  and  so !  " 
And  thus  they  make  themselves  double  fools, 
like  the  double  eagle  ! 

DON'T   SWEAR. 

A   MAN  who  swears,   first  damages  his  own 
moral  sense,  then  misleads  those  about  him, 
and  then  is  guilty  of  cruel  impoliteness  to  those 
to  whom  God's  name  is  sweet  and  sacred. 

THE  LAW  OF  HAPPINESS. 

THE  great  law  of  happiness  is  the  law  of  out- 
going, and  not  the  law  of  incoming. 

STEALING. 

MANY  a  man  will  steal  or  embezzle,  for  years, 
and  never  once  call  it  by  the  right  name — 
never !  If  he  happen  to  say  to  himself,  "  I  am 
a  thief,"  he  will  spring  back  as  if  God  had  spoken 
to  him;  it  is  like  poison  to  him.  "Thief!"  I 
don't  believe  you  could  make  many  men  steal  in 
that  way;  but  financiering  is  a  very  different 
thing.  Call  it  "stealing?"  O  no;  call  it  an 
arrangement.  Call  it  "thieving  ?"  O  no;  call  it 
an  unfortunate  affair.  Call  it  "robbery  ?  "  O  no; 
it  is  an  unfortunate  mistake.  We  talk  about 
bandaging  our  eyes,  but  I  think  men  bandage 
their  eyes  with  their  mouths  oftener  than  in  any 
othe_r  way. 

NOT  A  REPUTABLE  OFFICE. 

IN  every  large  church  there  is   a   set  of  men 
whose  business  it  is  to  hound  their  brethren. 
In  many  respects  they  are  very  good  men.     So 
a  hangman  may  be  a  good  man,  but  his  is  not  a 
very  reputable  office.     I  rather  dread  these  im- 

91 


proving  people — these  folks  that  go  round  build- 
ing everybody  up. 

THE  ANGELS  AMUSED. 

IT  is  not  particularly  agreeable  to  be  rained 
upon;  and  yet,  what  if  a  man  being  caught 
in  a  shower  while  on  his  way  to  visit  a  friend, 
should  say,  "Oh,  what  an  unfortunate  circum- 
stance !  Oh  my  raiment !  Oh  my  skin !  A 
great  calamity  has  befallen  me.  I  am  in  great 
'rouble.  I  have  met  with  a  serious  misfortune!" 
Why,  everybody  would  laugh  at  him,  except  the 
host;  he  might  refrain  from  laughing,  from 
politeness;  but  every  child,  every  servant,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  household,  would  be  convulsed 
with  laughter.  And  I  suppose  the  angels  have 
abundant  occupation  to  laugh  at  us,  when  they 
see  what  an  ado  we  make  about  the  sprinklings 
and  drenchings  we  receive  in  the  showers  which 
God  sends  upon  us  in  the  shape  of  trials  and 
sufferings.  God's  sons  ought  to  be  heroes. 

ANXIETY. 

U  QUPPOSE  the  last  loaf  is  baked  and  eaten, 
O  and  tne  crumbs  are  eaten,  am  I  then  to 
trust  in  God  ? "  What  better  can  you  do  ?  If 
you  do  not  know  where  the  next  loaf  is  to  come 
from,  what  will  you  do?  Going  to  be  anxious, 
are  you  ?  What  good  will  that  do  ?  Is  Anxious 
a  baker  that  he  will  bring  bread  ? 

LET  IT  BE  A  CHILD. 

MAKE   the  bridge  from  the  cradle  to  man- 
hood just  as  long  as  you  can.    Leave  your 
child  a  child  as  long  as  you  can — especially  if 
you  live  in  a  city.     Be  not  in  haste  to  force  your 
child  into  premature  development  by  intelligence 

92 


or  by  anything  else.     Let  it  be  a  child  and  not 
a  little  ape  of  a  man  running  about  the  town. 

THUS  SAITH  THE  LORD. 

THERE  could  be  no  gold  if  it  were  not  for 
the  pickaxe,  the  spade,  and  the  stamp;  and 
so  there  could  be  no  perfect  theology  if  there 
had  been  no  rude  theologies  before  it.  1  do  not 
blame  them.  There  was  reason  for  all  these 
successive  unfoldings  in  the  church,  in  the 
thoughts  of  religion,  that  we  have  had  in  variety 
and  continuity  and  that  have  been  crystallized 
into  Christians.  "Well,  why  do  you  talk  so  much 
about  them,  then  ? "  I  reply,  that  I  believe  in 
all  these  theologies  in  their  time,  and  for  their 
purpose;  but  when  they  have  outlived  their  time 
and  their  function,  and  are  brought  down  to  me, 
and  it  is  insisted  that  I  shall  take  them' because 
my  ancestors  did,  I  won't.  The  power  of  any 
institution  is  that  it  digs  its  own  grave.  The 
power  of  any  system  is  that  it  makes  possible 
another  so  much  better  as  that  must  give  way  in 
order  to  bring  a  later  and  better  one.  I  have  no 
objections,  therefore,  to  any  form  of  antiquated 
theology,  only  you  must  not  impose  it  on  me, 
and  say  in  regard  to  a  worn-out  thing,  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord."  Thus  the  Lord  did  say  two 
thousand  years  ago,  or  one  thousand  years  ago, 
and  it  was  the  best  that  man  could  have  then; 
but  He  has  not  said  a  word  in  my  time. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

I   WOULD  not  permit  a  man  to  call  me  his 
friend  who  had  no  other  friendship  for  me 
but  to  supply  my  needs. 

The  friend  himself  is  the  best  answer  to  my 
wants. 

ft 


S 


THE  DEVIL'S  SPAWN. 

ATAN  loves   asceticism.      It  is   the   devil's 
spawn.     But  joy  is  a  divine  element  and 
tends  to  liberty. 

UNKNOWN  HEROISM. 

rT>HE  great  virtues  of  human  life  are  the  same 
1  in  the  sight  of  God,  whether  achieved  in 
secret  and  private  life,  in  public  spheres,  and  be- 
fore men,  or  upon  momentous  occasions.  Not 
only  are  they  heroes  that  are  known  to  be  he- 
roes. There  is  more  unknown  heroism,  a  thou- 
sand times,  than  there  is  visible  and  recognized 
heroism  in  this  world.  As  when  we  reap  the 
wheat-field  with  an  implement  called  the  topping- 
machine,  we  go  through  and  cut  off  all  the  tops, 
and  leave  the  straw  behind;  so  it  is  not  yet  in 
the  great  reaping;  for  it  is  not  the  tall,  the  well- 
filled  out  and  the  eminent  that  God  is  looking 
upon  and  ready  to  sickle.  All  the  way  down, 
among  the  obscure,  the  weak,  those  who  are 
without  observation  and  without  influence,  there 
is  a  sphere  of  heroism,  too. 

FLORAL  PROPHETS. 

EVERY  flower,  and  every  tree,  and  every  root, 
are  annual  prophets  sent  to  affirm  the   fu- 
ture and  cheer  the  way. 

FEAR  AND  LOVE. 

THERE  is  nothing  that  is  so  convicting  of 
sin  as  putting  over  against  sinfulness  right 
conduct,  the  element  of  the  beautiful,  the  holy, 
the  true.  It  is  not  fear  which  has  been  the  prin- 
cipal instrument  of  striking  conviction  into  men's 
hearts.  That  is  not  the  most  powerful  and  fruit- 
ful in  producing  a  sense  of  sinfulness.  The 

94 


beauty  of  holiness,  the  wonder  and  glory  of  love, 
are  more  convicting  of  sin,  a  thousand  times,  to 
a  generous  soul,  than  the  thunders  of  hell  itself. 
Sinai  may  smoke;  but  let  Calvary  sigh,  and  say, 
"  Father,"  and  Calvary  is  the  mightier  of  the 
two. 

DECEMBER. 

KNOW,  O  month  of  destruction,  that  in  thy 
constellation  is  set  that  Star  whose  rising 
is   the   sign,  forevermore,  that  there  is  life   in 
death. 

EARLY  TRAINING. 

IF  homoeopathy  be  true,  a  drop  of  color  changes 
more  or  less  the  color  of  the  whole  Atlantic 
Ocean.  Of  course  it  is  attenuated,  and  our 
senses  cannot  discern  it,  but  it  is  there.  So  the 
things  we  do  for  the  interior  life  of  a  child  we 
lose  from  sight  and  forget;  but  they  remain  as 
active  forces  in  association  with  others,  in  com- 
plexity, and  go  on  acting  clear  down  to  the  very 
end  of  the  child's  life.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing, 
therefore,  to  infuse  malign  elements  into  a  child's 
life;  and  it  is  a  glorious  thing  to  introduce  the 
elements  of  love,  purity,  and  truth;  for  although 
they  may  not  appear  to-day,  and  may  seem  to 
disappear  in  a  score  of  years,  they  are  latent.  A 
thousand  times  they  come  back.  In  the  last 
years  of  his  life,  when  he  has  wrestled  with  ad- 
versity, and  the  outcome  and  finality  come,  it 
will  be  found  that,  after  all,  the  threads  that 
were  put  in  the  mother's  loom  have  not  broken, 
and  the  fabric  retains  them  to  the  very  end. 

SOWING  AND  REAPING. 

NE  man  sows,  and  another  reaps;  but  they 
shall  rejoice  together.     The  land  of  rejoic- 

95 


0 


ing  is  above  and  beyond.  It  is  there  that  they 
meet  who  were  unknown  benefactors  to  each 
other.  There  they  who  were  but  drops  that  fell 
into  the  river  of  life,  which  is  the  river  of  love, 
recognize  each  other.  Those  affinities  that  we 
feel  in  their  greatest  force  in  the  household  will 
have  a  wider  sphere,  a  more  glorious  expansion, 
in  the  world  to  come.  In  the  great  invisible  to- 
ward which  we  are  going,  we  shall  find  ten  thou- 
sand vibrating  strings  which  we  have  made  mu- 
sical, which  the  whole  heavens  shall  chant,  and 
which  the  whole  earth  will  hear. 

GREAT  MEN. 

THE  men  that  are  great  are  the  men  that  had 
no  consciousness  of  it  or  expectation  of  it. 
God  made  them  great — or  their  mothers;  for 
God  through  mothers  does  the  best  work  that  is 
dorie  in  the  world.  When  the  times  and  the 
emergencies  came  these  men  were  competent  for 
them,  and  rose  to  them,  and  showed  that  they 
were  great;  and  after  they  were  dead  everybody 
admitted  it. 

What  a  revolution  of  judgments  there  will  be 
when  men  are  dead!  I  do  not  despair,  in  some 
future  tract  society,  to  hear  some  tractarian  say, 
"  That  great  and  pious  Henry  Ward  Beecher." 
There  is  no  telling  what  a  man  may  come  to. 

PERFECTION. 

THE  idea  of  a  perfect  man  or  a  perfect  woman 
in  this  world,  is  one  of  the  sweetest  jests 
that  I  ever  roll  under  my  tongue. 

OUR  DUTY  TOWARD  OTHERS. 

OU  have  no  right  to  be  unconcerned  whether 
men  act  rightly  or  wrongly — whether  they 

96 


Y 


are  good  or  bad.  That  spirit  which  says,  "I  will 
take  care  of  my  own  self,  and  let  other  men  take 
care  of  themselves,"  is  of  the  devil.  The  spirit 
of  God  is  this:  "  Look  not  every  man  on  his 
own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of 
another." 

PATIENCE. 

I   DO  not  attempt  to  ripen  my  apples  by  throw- 
ing stones  at  them.     Oh,  that  we  could  be 
as  patient  with  each  other  as  we  are  with  apple 
trees. 

LYING  TRUTHS. 

I  SAY  that  a  person  may  so  tell  the  truth  as  to 
tell  a  lie  at  the  same  time;  as  when  a  man, 
offering  to  sell  a  mocking-bird,  and  being  asked 
whether  it  would  sing,  replied,  "  Oh !  it  will  de- 
light thee  to  hear  it  sing,"  on  the  strength  of 
which  reply  it  was  purchased.  There  is  no 
question  but  that  the  man  who  purchased  it 
would  have  been  exceedingly  delighted  to  hear 
it  sing,  but  he  never  did. 

RELIGIOUS  FEELING. 

I   BELIEVE  that  no  other  persons  can  have 
such    health  of  body  and  soul  as  they  who 
are  accustomed  to  high,  fervent,  sweet  religious 
feeling. 

LIVING  MUMMIES. 

'T^HERE  are  many  men  who  coin  every  drop 
1  of  manly  blood  in  them  to  get  money;  and 
when  they  have  got  it,  they  are  miserable  desic- 
cated mummies,  only  needing  the  cerements  on 
them  to  make  them  complete  ! 

97 


FAMILY  PRAYER. 

ANY  man  who  has  a  family  round  about  him, 
whatever  it  may  cost  in  the  beginning,  will 
do  wisely  to  take  up  family  prayer.  As  to 
reading  of  it  from  a  book,  every  man  must  have 
his  own  liberty.  It  is  better  to  read  than  not  to 
pray;  but  it  is  still  better  to  read  from  your  own 
religious  experience  than  from  any  other  volume. 
A  man  who  walks  with  crutches  is  better  than  a 
man  who  does  not  walk  at  all. 

CYPHER  BOTH  WAYS. 

/CYPHER  both  ways,  not  only  toward  heaven, 
V_,  but  also  toward  hell;  and  make  up  your 
mind  what  you  will  do  from  a  comprehensive 
calculation,  and  not  a  partial  and  flattering  one. 

THE   POWER. OF   HOME. 

THE  power  of  a  home  shows.     It  never  lets 
go  its  hold.     A  mother  has  often  reeled  in 
a  boy  by  the  line  of  love,  and  a  father's  memory 
has  brought  many  back. 

ONE  SIDED  RECONCILIATION. 

WHEN  a  church  was  about  to  be  built  in  a 
certain  town,  the  people  were  divided  with 
reference  to  where  it  should  stand,  and  the 
minister  had  to  preach  a  very  strong  sermon  on 
the  subject.  This  sermon  had  the  desired  effect. 
It  even  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  deacons 
— and  it  is  a  good  sign  when  deacons  cry.  The 
next  morning  one  deacon  called  on  another,  and 
said  to  him,  "Our  minister  is  right,  and  we  are 
imperiling  the  cause  of  Christ  by  our  dissension, 
and  I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  we  must  com- 
promise; and  now,  you  must  give  up,  for  I  can't." 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 

THE  origin  of  evil  is  a  cob  that  has  been 
gnawed  upon  for  thousands  of  years,  but 
no  one  ever  got  a  kernel  from  it.     It  is  still  a  cob. 

COPYISTS  NOT  ARTISTS. 

pOPYISTS  are  not  artists,  any  more  than  a 
\_y  dog  is  an  artist  because  he  draws  a  little 
baby  in  a  wagon  behind  him  ! 

A  CRACKED  FRIENDSHIP. 

IF  you  cut  off  a  branch  of  a  tree,  and  im- 
mediately bandage  it,  so  as  not  to  allow  the 
air  to  get  at  the  wound,  it  will  grow  again ;  but 
if  you  crack  a  crystal  vase,  no  growing  process 
in  creation  will  repair  the  damage.  It  is  cracked 
glass  forever  and  forever.  Nothing  will  take  out 
the  crack.  Now,  although  a  cracked  friendship, 
like  a  cracked  tumbler,  may  be  cemented,  the 
moment  you  put  it  into  hot  water  the  bottom 
will  fall  out  or  it  will  come  to  pieces  ! 

FRETFUL  PEOPLE. 

OERSONS  that  are  fretful  in  youth  and  in 
I  middle  age  are  usually  so  through  old  age, 
and  they  go  croaking  to  the  end  of  their  days, 
when,  reptile-like,  they  crawl  out  of  life. 

THANKSGIVING  DAY. 

A  THANKSGIVING  dinner  represents  every- 
thing that  has  grown  in  all  the  summer  fit 
to  make  glad  the  heart  of  man.  It  is  a  table 
piled  high  with  the  treasures  of  the  growing  year, 
accepted  with  rejoicings,  as  a  token  of  gratitude 
to  God.  It  is  an  American  day. 


OLD  SAXON  WORDS. 

OLD  Saxon  words  are  Day  of  Judgment  words; 
they  are  like  double-edged  swords,  and  cut 
where  they  hit.  But  when  we  come  to  speak  of 
evil,  we  must  have  Latin,  or  some  soft  language. 
I  think  it  will  take  two  or  three  languages  fur  us 
to  get  along  with,  soon. 

ANGER. 

DO  not  be  angry  by  the  day.     Be  angry  when 
there  is  a  just  cause  for  it,  but  get  over  it 
as  speedily  as  possible.     A  man  could  not  live 
and  be  in  a  constant  blaze  of  anger.     It  is  only 
now  and  then  that  one  can  afford  to  be  angry 

ON  DOING  GOOD. 

DO  not  do  some  good  thing  on  purpose  that 
you  may  be  happy.     You  must  do  good  for 
the  sake  of  doing  good,  and  not  for  the  sake  of 
the  kicking  back  of  happiness. 

GOD'S  PLAN. 

THEREFORE  although  I  would  not  speak 
contemptuously  of  any  form  of  words  that 
may  have  become  endeared  to  any  man's  ex- 
perience, yet  I  may  say,  so  far  as  my  own  ex- 
perience is  concerned,  I  utterly  abhor  such  terms 
as  "God's  plan,"  and  as  the  "plan  of  salvation;" 
as  though  there  had  been  endless  cypherings, 
plannings,  fixings  and  arrangements,  and  at  last 
there  was  something  devised,  and  God's  heart 
uplifted  salvation. 


L 


VALUE  OF  LABOR. 

ET    parents    who   hate    their  offspring  rear 
them  to  hate  labor,  and  before  long  they 

100 


will  be  stung  by  every  vice,  racked  by  its  poison, 
and  damned  by  its  penalty. 

INFIRMITY  NOT  SIN. 

MEN  are  responsible  for  sin,  but  not  for  in- 
firmity.    Infirmities  are  the  mistakes  which 
men  make  on  their  way  to  knowledge. 

The  only  sin  in  this  world  is  voluntary  trans- 
gression. It  is  when  a  man  knows  what  is  right 
and  won  I;  when  he  knows  what  is  wrong  and 
will. 

GOOD   FOR   NOTHING  MEN. 

ALL   along   the  shores  of  life  I  see  men  in 
middle  life  lay  themselves  up;   and  there 
they  lie  shrinking  and  cracking,  good  for  nothing 
on  sea  or  on  land.     Now,  if  anybody  wants  lo 
retire,  die  ! 

VICE  A  DELIGHT. 

n^HE  same  terrible  instinct  that  is  in  many 
X  birds  of  prey,  by  which  they  have  a  palate 
for  carrion,  and  scent  it  afar  off,  seems  to  be  in 
the  bosoms  of  a  great  many  men  in  the  world. 
The  first  hint  of  scandal  is  like  the  wine  of 
intoxication  to  them.  "How  shall  the  thing  be 
found  out?"  they  say  to  themselves.  "How 
shall  it  be  opened  up?  How  shall  the  parties 
involved  be  identified  and  convicted  ?"  And  if, 
when  they  have  found  it  out,  it  proves  to  be  as 
bad  as  they  thought  it  was,  it  is  a  real  luxury  to 
them.  It  does  them  good  to  their  very  bones. 
Nothing  gives  them  half  so  much  pleasure. 
They  slide  down  the  sides  of  it  as  men  slide  down 
the  sides  of  frozen  mountains.  To  roll  over  and 
over  upon  the  dung-hill  of  vice  is  their  chief 
delight. 

101 


NATURE'S    LIBRARY. 

NATURE  is  the  man's  library  who  knows  how 
to   seek  for  knowledge.     Nature  is  every 
man's  picture  gallery  who  knows  how  to  hunger 
after  and  appreciate  beauty. 

TEMPTATION  HAS  A  SHORT  ARROW. 

TEMPTATION   shoots   with   a  strong  bow, 
but  with  a  short  arrow.     If  you  fly  high 
the  archer  cannot  reach  you. 

DOING  GOOD  AT  SELF-EXPENSE. 

THERE  is  no  person  in  this  world  who  so 
uniformly  takes  his  pay  as  he  goes  along, 
as  he  who  does  good  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
comfort  and  convenience. 

INTEMPERANCE. 

WE  drink,  not  to  gratify  the  palate,  but  for  a 
business  purpose.  That  being  the  case, 
we  may  begin  with  the  milder  beverages,  just  as 
we  begin  our  fires  with  pine  shavings,  not  only 
because  we  can  light  them  so  easily,  but  also 
because  we  want  them  to  set  on  fire  something 
solider.  And  wine  is  stepstone  to  brandy.  Beer 
is  stepstone  the  other  way.  It  does  not  lead  up 
to  brandy,  but  it  leads  down  to  drunk,  and 
beastly  drunk. 

WRINKLES. 

I   DO  not  like  to  see  wrinkles.     I  think  they  are 
the  devil's  furrows  on  the  brow,  unless  age 
has  placed  them  there. 

BORROWING  TROUBLE. 

I  NEVER  saw  a  man  that  could  not  gel  through 
a  single  day.     If  you  can  bear  your  burden 


to-day,  if  you  can  endure  your  pain  to-day,  you 
Avill  get  along  well  enough.  You  steal  if  you 
touch  to-morrow.  How  many  times  have  clouds 
rolled  up  in  men's  heaven  which  have  apparently 
been  full  of  trouble,  but  which  have  not  had  a 
trouble  in  them  ! 

GOD'S  CHARACTER. 

IF  you  worship  God  as  a  being  other  than  a 
God  of  love,  you   are  worshiping  a  demon. 
Many  a  man  will  have  to  throw  away  his  God 
before  he  can  enter  heaven. 

WEARINESS. 

DO  not  be  weary.     Do  not  despond.     Despair 
is  the  devil  to  you.     Hope  is  God's  voice 
to  you,     Hope  on,  hold  on,  love  on,  live  on. 

HEAVEN,  A  TUNING-FORK 

HEAVEN  answers  with  us  the  same  purpose 
that  the  tuning-fork  does  with  the  musician. 
Our  affections  are  apt  to  get  below  the  concert- 
pitch,  and  we  take  heaven  to  tune  our  hearts  by. 

CHILDHOOD,  AN  EGG. 

MEN  do  not  come  into  life,  full-born.  Child- 
hood is  but  an  egg  laid,  to  be  hatched  by 
human  life.  Man  comes  into  the  world  unfledged, 
and  he  has  to  work  his  way  up  through  the  ex- 
terior shell  of  ignorance,  before  he  can  peep  or 
fly. 

THE  CHURCH  NO  MONOPOLY  OF  GOODNESS. 
A  NYTHING  that  is  found  in  the  church  or 
£\  out  of  the  church  to  promote  the  welfare  of 
men,  has  the  signet  of  God  stamping  it  as  right, 
and  making  it  divine. 

103 


CHRIST,  A  ROYAL  ENGINEER. 

NEVER  lived  a  man  to  more  purpose  in  the 
life  that  now  is  than  Paul  did.     Christ  was 
to  him  a  royal  engineer  who  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago  cast  up  a  highway  of  salvation  from 
earth  to  heaven. 

THE  WORLD  NOT  A  PALACE. 

WHEN  God  built  this  world,  He  did  not 
build  a  palace  complete  with  appoint- 
ments. This  is  a  drill  world.  Men  were  not 
dropped  down  upon  it.  like  manna,  fit  to  be 
gathered  and  used  as  it  fell;  but  like  seeds,  to 
whom  the  plow  is  father,  the  furrow  mother,  and 
on  which  iron  and  stone,  sickle,  flail,  and  mill 
must  act  before  they  come  to  the  loaf. 

COMMERCIAL  HONOR. 

WE    want  to  come  to  a  higher  sense  of  the 
obligation  which  rests  upon  men  to  keep 
their  word  and  honor  intact  and  pure  to  the  very 
end. 

TRUE  HUMILITY. 

IT  is  humility  to  think,  not  that  you  are  less 
than  somebody  else,  but   that  you  are  less 
than  you  ought  to  be. 

PICTURES  ON  THE  WINDOW. 

BEHOLD  in  these  morning  pictures,  wrought 
without  color  and  kissed  upon  the  window 
by  the  cold  lips  of  Winter,  another  instance  of 
that  Divine  Beneficence  of  beauty  which  suffuses 
the  heavens,  clothes  the  earth,  and  royally 
decorates  the  months  to  fill  the  world  with  joy, 
pure  as  the  Great  Heart  from  which  it  had  its 
birth. 

104 


ON  ONE  SIDE  OR  THE  OTHER. 

EVERY  man  is  for  truth,  or  he  is  for  error. 
Every  man  is  for  right  or  he  is  for  wrong. 
Every  man  is  for  benevolence,  or  he  is  for  selfish- 
ness.    Every  man  is  for  the  spiritual,  or  he  is  for 
the  animal. 

VALUE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

WITH  all  its   faults,  is  there    anything  that 
aims  so  high  as  the  Church;  is  there  any 
other  thing  that  could  fill  the  void  if  it  should 
sink? 

CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 

WHEN   a  man  means  religion  there  is  no  need 
that  he  should  miss  religion.     A  man  that 
means  manhood  has  a  road  broad  enough  for  a 
fool  to  find  out  at  midnight. 

RESIGNATION. 

LET  no  one  sound  the  keynote  of  his  own 
desire  first,  and  ask  nature  to  take  up  the 
harmony.     Let  him  accept  clouds  when  clouds 
are    sent,  sunlight   when  sunlight  comes;   little 
things—  rude  things — all  things. 

GOD'S  KINGDOM  NOT  A  PLACE. 

JESUS  taught  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not 
a  place,  but  a  moral  condition,  and  that  any- 
body who  reaches  up  to  that  moral  condition  is 
a  member  of  that  kingdom. 

EMPTY  SHIPS, 

SOME  men  are  like  empty  ships,  which  dance 
and  toss  about  like  egg-shells  on  the  water, 
but    which,  if   you    load    them,  and    sink    them 
down  to  the  deck,  will  ride  steadily  through  the 

105 


waves.  Many  nun  have  to  experience  real 
trouble  before  they  will  carry  an  even  keel;  and 
then  they  make  good  voyages.  In  the  case  of 
not  a  few,  real  trouble  is  the  best  thing  that  can 
happen  to  them.  Many  men  are  like  old  past- 
ures which  are  very  short  and  turf-bound,  which 
do  not  like  to  be  plowed,  but  the  usefulness  of 
which,  as  is  shown  by  the  crops  they  produce,  is 
materially  increased  by  their  being  turned  over 
to  the  depth  of  fifteen  inches  or  so.  Many  men 
do  not  like  to  have  their  old  soddy  lives  plowed 
up  by  trouble,  but  their  lives  are  improved,  as  is 
shown  by  the  clarifying  effects  porduced  upon 
them,  by  being  turned  up  from  the  very  bottom. 

SUPPLE  DOGS. 

TO  be  pressed  down  by  adversity  is  not  a  dis- 
grace; but  it  is  a  disgrace  to  lie  down  un- 
der it  like  a  supple  dog. 

TRUST  IN  GOD. 

MANY  persons  trust  God  just  as  many  cities 
light  their  streets,  which,  when  the  moon 
shines  brightly,  are  very  particular  to  light  all 
their  gas-lights;  but  which,  when  the  moon  is 
gone,  neglect  to  light  them  at  all.  I  have  seen 
men  who,  when  in  prosperity,  were  strong  in 
their  trust  in  God,  but  who,  when  surrounded 
by  adverse  circumstances,  had  no  trust  in  God 
or  anything  else. 

HONEST  THIEVES. 

OH,  thou  honest  legal  thief  !     God  writes  thee 
down  a  fitter  tenant  of  the  jail  than  yonder 
culprit!     The  unwhipped  crimes  of  men  unde- 
tected, are  often  worse  than  the  crimes  that  offi- 
cers make  known  and  punish. 

106 


UNDERSTANDING  POWER. 

THE  quality  and  the  quantity  of   the   under- 
standing  power  in    man,  determines  how 
much  can  be  revealed  to  him. 

THE  MISERY  OF  WEALTH. 

MEN  that  have  wealth  and  do  not  know  what 
to  do  with  it,  are  the  most  miserable  men 
out  of  hell — and  they  ought  to  be  !  There  is  a 
fable  told  of  a  man  whose  gold  was  poured 
molten  down  his  throat.  The  same  thing  is 
done  every  day  in  the  year  among  us;  and  we 
hear  the  victims  squeal  perpetually  in  their 
wretchedness  and  misery. 

PAUL  AND  MOSES. 

1  SUPPOSE  there  never  was  a  man  equal  to 
Paul — not  even  Moses.  When  I  discourse 
about  Moses  I  am  sure  that  he  is  the  greatest 
man  that  ever  lived;  and  when  I  discourse  about 
Paul,  I  know  that  he  is  the  greatest  man  that 
ever  lived.  Let  these  two  men  stand  side  by 
side.  They  are  fit  brothers,  the  one  as  a  represent- 
ative of  the  old  dispensation,  the  other  as  a 
representative  of  the  new  dispensation;  the  one 
a  leader  in  the  reign  of  muscle;  the  other  a  lead- 
er in  the  reign  of  the  spirit.  These  two  men 
stand  head  and  shoulders  above  any  other  men 
that  ever  lived  since  the  time  of  Christ.  Indeed, 
they  are  more  than  all  the  other  men  that  have 
lived  since  that  time,  throwing  in  even  the 
prophets, 


A 


A  DOUBTFUL   BENEFIT. 

N  education  that  threads  down  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  child  is  a  very  doubtful  benefit. 

107 


OCCASIONAL   MEDITATION. 

NOW  the  power  of  this  world  to  teach  us  of 
God,  and  to  bring  us  into  communion  with 
Him,  is  not  to  be  rendered  available  to  us  by  an 
occasional  meditation  upon  it,  nor  by  reading  a 
chapter  otHervey's  Meditations,  or  anybody  else's 
meditations;  nor  by  looking,  now  and  then,  out 
of  our  windows,  on  Sundays,  at  the  world. 

DOWNY  LIES. 

THERE  are  different  sizes  of  feathers  on  an 
eagle;  there  are  wing-feathers,  and  tail- 
feathers  and  down.  And  there  are  wing-feather 
lies,  and  downy  lies.  You  can  lie  without  open- 
ing your  mouth,  as  well  as  by  opening  it.  Your 
little  ringer  can  lie  as  well  as  your  tongue. 

REASONING  UP. 

ALWAYS  reason  up,  never  down.  Under  any 
circumstances,  never  allow  yourselves  to 
say,  "But  may  I  not  do  this?"  Never  say  to 
yourself:  "Has  not  this  been  tied  too  tight?"  I 
say  a  man  who  is  just  as  good  as  the  law  makes 
him,  is  a  mean  man. 

TEXTS  FROM  LIFE. 

WHEN  our  Saviour  preached,  He  never  took 
a  text  out  of  the  Bible,  except  in  one  in- 
stance— namely,  when  He  preached  His  opening 
sermon  in  the  synagogue.  On  all  other  occa- 
sions He  took  His  texts  out  of  life.  And  what  a 
commentary  is  this  fact  upon  those  who  say  that 
we  must  not  bring  anything  into  the  pulpit  out 
of  ordinary  daily  life,  or  anything  which  is  not 
taken  out  of  the  Bible — a  notion  which  is  anti- 
Christian,  and  against  the  example  of  Christ,  as 
well  as  against  common  sense  ! 

108 


JUNE. 

JUNE!     Rest !     This  is  the  year's  bower.     Sit 
down  within  it.      Wipe  from   thy    brow    the 
toil.    The  elements  are  thy  servant.     The  earth 
shows  thee  all  her  treasure. 

The  wonder  is  that  every  other  man  is  not,  in 
the  month  of  June,  a  gentle  fanatic.  Floral  in- 
sanity is  one  of  the  most  charming  inflictions  to 
which  man  is  heir.. 

CHRYSALIS  MEN. 

NO  man  has  a  right  to  say,  "  I  will  take  the 
regality  of  power  which  I  have,  and  carve 
out  a  place,  and  store  it  with  abundance,  and  go 
in  there  and  enjoy  myself  for  the  rest  of  my 
life."  The  life  of  such  a  man  is  the  insect  life. 
There  is  a  worm  to  begin  with.  This  worm 
goes  into  himself  to  take  his  ease,  and  becomes 
a  dead,  juicy  chrysalis.  A  worm,  a  butterfly,  a 
sack  of  juice:  these  are  the  three  forms  of  insect 
life.  And  how  many  men  are  there  that  are 
worms  in  their  beginnings,  who,  when  they  have 
gone  through  their  crawling  period,  wing  their 
way  in  the  summer  warmth  for  a  time,  and  then 
go  back  into  a  substantial  chrysalis  state  ! 

MARRYING  GODS. 

LL  women  marry  gods,  but  sadly   consent 
afterwards  to  live  with  men. 

TENDER  AS  A  WOMAN. 

HE  was  as  tender  as  a  woman — or  rather,  I 
should  have  said,  he  lacked  the  toughness 
of  a  woman;  for,  slender  and  shrinking  as  women 
are,  when  troubles  come  they  are  almost  the  only 
persons  who  are  tough  of  heart.  They  are  ten- 
der of  skin,  but  inside  they  are  as  strong  as  iron. 

109 


A 


DISORDERED  STOMACHS. 

'TMiERE  are  a  great  many  temptations  that 
1  are  mere  nervous  temptations,  and  a  great 
many  visions  that  are  simply  improper  manifes- 
tations of  the  mental  economy.  There  are  a 
great  many  things  which  men  register  in  their 
journals  as  the  work  of  the  Devil,  that  are  nothing 
but  the  work  of  a  disordered  stomach. 

LYMAN    BEECHER. 

HIS  example  was  one  which    inspired  faith  in 
manhood,    in    disinterested  affection   and 
unfeigned   piety.     He    seemed  a  good  and  true 
man,  but  he  was  better  than  he  seemed. 

CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 

^PO  deny  the  evidence  of  cause  and  effect  in 
1       geology   is  to  deny  the  only  principle  on 
which  you  can  demonstrate  the  existence  of  a 
God. 

RELIGION  LIKE  A  BIRD. 

DO  you  suppose  that  religion  is  like  a  bird  in 
a  cage,  and  that  you  can  lock  it  up  in  the 
church,  and  that  the  keeper  will  take  care  of  it, 
and  feed  it,  and  have  it  ready  to  sing  for  you 
whenever  you  chose  to  come  here  and  listen 
to  it?  Is  that  your  idea  of  religion  ?  Very  well, 
then;  your  Bible  and  mine  are  different.  We 
read  different  translations  ! 

A  PROVERB. 

IT  has  passed  into  a  proverb  that  before  elec- 
tion, "condescension  to  men  of  low  estate," 
is  the  very  fullness  of  the  Bible.     They  esteem 
every  man  a  brother,  and  would  esteem  every 
woman  a  sister  if  she  only  had  a  vote. 

110 


PEDIGREE  FARMERS. 

THEN  there  are  the  pedigree  farmers,  not 
unknown  among  men  in  natural  husban- 
dry. They  have  got  the  very  poorest  fruit  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  neighborhood,  bearing  the 
highest  sounding  names.  They  have  got  the 
most  marvelous  pears,  the  most  wonderful  apples, 
the  most  extraordinary  strawberries.  They  give 
the  most  astonishing  names  to  the  most  meagre, 
miserable  fruit.  But  then,  it  has  such  high- 
sounding  titles!  There  are  these  same  men 
whose  herds  are  about  the  poorest,  the  scrawni- 
est, and  the  weakest  in  the  whole  country  round 
about  them;  but  they  have  a  pedigree  that  takes 
them  back,  every  one  of  them,  to  Noah's  Ark! 
Their  oxen  are  lean,  their  cows  are  rnilkless,  but 
they  are  proud  of  them  nevertheless,  they  have 
such  a  noble  pedigree!  They  are  uncurried, 
unfatted,  and  unfatable,  to  be  sure;  but  ah,  what 
a  line  of  blood  did  they  spring  from!  Did  you 
never  see  just  such  husbandmen  in  the  Church? 
— men  who  had  no  greater  morality,  or  piety,  or 
spiritual  experience,  but  who  went  back  through 
a  long  pedigree,  one  going  plump  up  to  Peter, 
and  another  plump  up  to  Paul,  and  others  plump 
up  to  the  prophets  themselves! 

A  LIBRARY. 

A  LITTLE  library  growing  larger  every  year 
is  an  honorable  part  of  a  young  man's  his- 
tory.    It   is   a  man's  duty  to  have  books.     A 
library  is  not  a  luxury,  but  one  of  the  necessaries 
of  life. 

SLEEPING  IN  CHURCH. 

IN  what  other  painful  event  of  life  has  a  good 
man  so  little  sympathy  as   when  overcome 

111 


with  sleep  in  meeting  time?  In  his  lawful  bed 
a  man  cannot  sleep,  and  in  his  pew  he  cannot 
keep  awake! 

AUTUMNAL  COLORS 

OUR  English  friends  have  seen  autumnal  col- 
ors, but  when  they  have  once  seen  a  color- 
autumn  in  America,  how  imperfect  do  they  find 
their  conceptions  to  have  been! 

OVERWORK. 

HOW  many  do  we  now  see  among  us  who  are 
dragging  themselves  along  through  life, 
reaping  the  inevitable  consequences  of  an  over- 
taxed body,  because  they  esteem  business  and 
profits  above  health  and  comfort.  They  say, 
"  I  would  fain  stop,  but  I  can  see  no  place  to 
stop."  By-and-by,  when  disease  takes  you  by 
the  shoulders  and  pitches  you  on  the  bed,  I 
think  you  will  find  a  place  to  stop!  When  the 
undertaker  comes  along  you  will  find  a  place  to 
stop! 

OCTOBER. 

OCTOBER!    Orchard  of    the  year!    Ripened 
seeds  shake  in  their  pods.     Apples  drop  in 
the   stillest   hours.     The  days  are   calm.     The 
nights  are  tranquil. 

It  is  a  little  saddening  though  to  have  a  month 
in  which  the  whole  garden  might  have  gone  on 
growing,  with  all  its  tassels  and  fringes,  its  cups 
and  clusters,  but  for  that  single  solitary  night. 

CONTENTMENT. 

IF  a  man  has  come  to  that  point  where  he  is 
content,  he  ought  to  be  put  in  his  coffin;  for 
a  contented  live  man  is  a  sham! 

112 


CHILDISHNESS. 

IT  would  be  better  for  us  if  we  had  more  child- 
ishness about  ourselves.     Masons  know  that 
that  work  is  never  good  which  sets  too  quick. 
If  manhood  sets  too  quick,  it  is  apt  to  be  stiff 
and  brittle. 

LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

THE  true  landscape  gardener  is  an  artist  who 
should  rank  with  the  masters.     He  uses 
trees  for  forms  and  colors,  not  on  a  canvas,  but 
on  the  wide  fields. 

MARTIN   LUTHER. 

MARTIN  LUTHER  asks  no  leave  of  pope 
or  emperor  now.     He  is  the  monarch  of 
thought,  and  the  noblest  defender  of  the  faith  to 
the  end  of  time. 

REMNANTS. 

YOU  know  that  in  the  business  of  publishing 
there  are  what  are  called  "the  remainders." 
If  an  edition  of  a  book  is  published,  and  it  is 
not  all  sold,  the  part  that  remains  unsold  is 
called  "the  remainder"  of  that  edition.  And  in 
manufacturing  establishments  and  stores  there 
is  a  great  amount  of  stock  which  is  called  "rem- 
nants," and  which  consists  of  scraps,  and  shop- 
worn goods  that  are  left  over.  Now  I  think  that 
the  church  and  the  community  are  full  of  "rem- 
nants "  and  "  remainders  " — men  that  are  left 
over. 

ASKING  AMISS. 

GOD,  who  loves  us  so  well,  will  no  more  per- 
mit us  to  mark  out  the  things  which  \\e  are 
to  have,  than  a  parent  will  say  to  a  child,  "What 

113 


do  you  want? "  and  then  promise  to  give  it  what 
it  asks  for.  It  would  want  the  razors,  the  tempt- 
ing bottles  of  medicine,  the  wine  and  brandy, 
(till  it  had  tasted  them!)  and  such  like  things. 

LEFT  OUT  OF  DOORS. 

'T^HIS  world   was  made   for   poor   men,   and 
1       therefore,  the  greater  part  of  it  was  left  out 
of  doors,  where  everybody  could  enjoy  it. 

INTELLIGENCE. 

IF  a  man  has  nothing  better  to  do  than  turning 
a  grindstone,  it  is  better  to  be  educated;  or 
sticking  pins  on  a  paper,  or  sweeping  the  streets; 
it  makes  no  difference  what  you  do,  you  will  do 
it  better  if  you  are  an  intelligent  man.  It  is  said 
that  blood  will  tell  in  stock;  and  I  know  that 
intelligence  will  tell  in  man. 

STAVING  OFF  JUDGMENT. 

I  TELL  you  that  the  moral  reasonings  of  the 
store  and  the  counting-room,  with  reference 
to  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  in  getting 
money,  and  the  reasonings  of  God's  judgment- 
seat,  will  be  very  different  operations.  You  can 
muzzle  your  fear,  and  you  can  silence  your  con- 
science, and  you  can  go  on  making  money  by 
ways  which  God  abhors,  and  which  every  honest 
man  ought  to  abhor,  and  you  can,  in  the  mean- 
time, have  comparative  peace;  but  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  staving  off  judgment 
now,  and  staving  off  revelation  and  judgment 
then! 


T 


DOTH  WORTHLESS. 


HE    supine   sluggard    is   no   more   indolent 
than  the  bustling  do-nothing. 


114 


FORTUNE  SEEKING. 

THE  stories  tell  us  about  men  who  go  out  to 
seek  their  fortunes,   but    in    America   the 
term  work  out  is  better. 

PROGRESS  OF  THE  RACE. 

MANKIND    are     yet     to    be    enfranchised. 
God's  power  will  break  through  and  shat- 
ter all  combinations  that  undertake  to  hinder  the 
onward  progress  of  the  race. 

LUCK, 

THE  fool's  luck,   lottery  luck,    good-fortune 
luck,  superstitious   luck— do  not  trust  to 
that.     Luck  is  in  the  heart,   the  head,  and  the 
hand. 

THE  WORLD  A  GRINDSTONE. 

THE  world  is  a  grindstone,  and  races  are  axes 
which  are  to  get  their  cutting  edges  by  be- 
ing ground  on  it!  The  very  object  for  which 
God  thinks  it  worth  while  to  turn  and  roll  this 
round  globe,  is  that  by  its  very  attrition  and 
working,  men  may  be  made  men  in  every  sense 
of  the  term. 

SAVING  POWER  OF  LOVE. 

WHETHER  a  man  be  high  church,  or  low 
church,   or  new  church,   or   no    church; 
whether  he  hold  this  creed,  or  that  creed,  or  no 
creed,  if  he  has  the  saving  power  of  love  in  the 
soul,  grace  be  upon  him. 


N 


ON  PREACHING. 

OW  there  are  thousands  that  derive   intel- 
lectual pleasure   from   preaching.      They 

115 


like  to  heat  the  sound  of  the  music,  which  shows 
that  the  parade  is  coming.  By  and  by,  in  comes 
the  preacher,  and  he  develops  his  soldiers'  ideas 
to  their  great  admiration,  and  parades  them 
through  a  long  sermon.  When  he  is  done,  the 
people,  as  they  go  out,  say,  "Splendid  parade, 
wasn't  it?  Fine  ideas — fine  ideas?  Very  well 
put."  To  whom  were  they  put  ?  There  wasn't 
a  musket  that  had  a  ball  or  any  powder  in  it. 
Not  a  man  dreamed  of  hitting  anybody.  It  was 
a  sham;  all  a  sham.  There  was  no  fight.  The 
sermon  was  all  a  mere  exhibition  of  ideas,  a 
mere  marching  of  ideas. 

THE  GATE  OPEN. 

WHEN  you  come  to  the  gate  of  heaven,  you 
may  be  sure,  if  you  knock,  and  say, 
"Lord,  Lord,  open  unto  me,"  that  you  will  not 
get  in.  A  man  that  is  fit  to  go  in,  always  goes 
up  without  dreaming  that  God  will  not  let  him 
in.  He  expects  to  find  the  gate  open. 


L 
M 


LOVE. 

OVE  never  cares  for  what  it  gets,  but  oh, 
how  it  rejoices  in  what  it  gives! 

HOW  MERCIES  ARE  TREATED. 

OST  men  treat  their  mercies  as  I  have  seen 
persons  treat  flowers  that  I  had  given 
them.  They  took  them  with  an  indifferent 
"  Thank  you,"  but  seemed  to  regard  them  as  so 
many  mere  leaves,  or  as  some  miserable,  worth- 
less things,  and  presently  commenced  picking 
them  to  pieces;  and  by  the  time  they  had  taken 
twenty  steps  the  walk  was  strewn  with  fragments 
of  them,  and  I  looked  after  them  and  said,  "If 
you  get  another  gift  from  me,  you  will  know  it." 

116 


THE  TRINITY. 

YOU  may  quarrel  about  the  Trinity.     I  let  the 
Trinity   take   care   of     itself.       You     say 
it    is    taught    in    the    Bible.      All   right.     But 
as  I  know    nothing  about  it,   I   simply   accept 
the  fact  and  go  on. 

NOT  YET  BORN. 

THE  experiences  of  love  are  such  sometimes, 
even  in  this  life,  as  to  be  an  earnest,  a 
blessed  interpretation,  of  something  more  glori- 
ous yet  to  come.  There  is  one  thing  which  the 
New  Testament  is  always  in  labor  with,  and 
which  is  never  born,  and  that  is  the  conception 
of  the  greatness  of  the  love  of  Christ  to  our 
souls. 

LOVE  OF  FLOWERS. 

IF  you  do  not  love  your  garden  enough  to  care 
for  it  as  you  would  for  a  baby,  better  let  it 
alone.     Flowers  will  not  be  put  off  with  arm's 
length  cordiality. 

CROAKERS. 

AND  that  whole  owl  set  of  men,  that  raven, 
black-winged-prophet  set,  that  sit  on  the 
dry  branches  of  nature,  and  croak  about  this 
miserable  world  and  this  miserable  life,  belong 
outside  of  the  line  of  Christianity.  Not  only  are 
they  not  disciples  of  Christ,  but  they  are  not 
knowledgeable  men  even  in  the  elements  of 
Christianity. 


s 


HEAD  DAYS— HEART  DAYS. 

OME  days  seem  to  be  characterized  by  some 
single  sense.     There  are  head-days,  heart- 

117 


days,  there  are  eye-days  and  ear-days,  and  prom- 
iscuous days  in  which  delicious  sensations  of 
pleasure  at  life  in  general  predominate. 

SUNDAY  WITH  MY  AUNT. 

ONE  Sunday  afternoon  with  my  Aunt  Esther 
did  me  more  good  than  forty  Sundays  in 
church  with  my  father.     He  thundered  over  my 
head,  and  she  sweetly  instructed  me  down  in  my 
heart. 

GOOD,  SOLID  DOCTRINES. 

NOW  let  a  minister,  for  nineteen  sermons  out 
of  twenty,  preach  of  abstract  doctrines, 
that  neither  he  nor  God  knows  anything  about, 
because  they  are  not  true,  and  the  people  would 
say,  "Here  is  a  man  who  knows  how  to  lay  down 
good,  solid  doctrines.  He  is  a  great  preacher." 

OBEDIENCE  IN  CHILDREN. 

IT  is  a  cruel  kindness  to  leave  a  child's  dis- 
position unsubdued.  One  who  has  never 
learned  how  to  obey,  will  be  at  fault  all  his  life 
long.  It  is  a  vital  attainment.  Flax  is  no  better 
than  any  weed,  unless  it  be  broken,  hatcheled; 
then  it  may  be  spun  and  woven;  then  it  may  be 
manufactured  and  worn. 

YOU  HAVE  ME  THERE. 

WE  do  not  know  precisely  what  our  being 
will  be  in  the  future,  though  we  know  in 
general.  I  know  in  general  what  the  Aurora 
Borealis  is.  If  you  press  the  question  as  to  what 
it  is,  I  say,  "It  is  a  bank  of  tremulous,  up-mount- 
ing light,  at  the  North."  If  you  ask,  "What  is  it 
made  of  ? "  you  have  me  there. 

118 


GOD'S  LAWS  ETERNAL. 

THE  constable  sleeps,  and  the  sheriff  nods, 
and  the  judge  is  unknowing;  but  the  laws 
ot  God  follow  a  man  by  night  and  by  day,  and 
never  leave  him. 

GOOD  NATURE. 

GOOD  nature  is  not  to  be  an  occasional  thing, 
which  a  man  summons  once  in  a  while,  as 
he  does  his  doctor  or  his  attorney. 

HIDDEN  THOUGHTS. 

UrPHE  thoughts  which  are  hidden  are   the 
1       most   precious      The  shells  which  the 
sea  rolls   out   on   shore  are  not  its  best.     The 
pearls  have  to  be  dived  for." 

PROFITABLE  MISTAKES 

OUR  successes  are  not  so  profitable  to  us  as 
our  mistakes.     It  is  a  comfort  to  believe 
that  our  mistakes  in  this  world  will  have  rectifi- 
cation in  the  world  to  come — as  they  will. 

WRONG  DOING  FOR  OTHERS. 

BE  careful  of  doing  wrong  to  your  employers, 
and  be  just  as  firm  never  to  do  any  wrong 
for  them  as  you  are  never  to  do  any  wrong 
against  them.  No  matter  if  they  wish  a  whip- 
lash, and  wish  to  strike  it  out,  never  let  them  tie 
you  to  the  handle. 

DICKENS. 

DICKENS'  books,   though  they  are  not  theo- 
logical or  religious,  are  books  which  are  in 
strange  and  admirable  harmony  with   this  mes- 
sage, "GOOD  WILL  TO  MEN." 

119 


THE  NEW  YEAR. 

EVERY  man  should  be  born  again  on  the  first 
of  January.     Take  up   one  hole  more  in 
the  buckle  or  let  down  one,  but  on  the   first  of 
the  year  let  every  man  gird  himself  anew  with 
his  face  to  the  front. 

LIFE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

I  THINK,  indeed,  the  great  tragedies  of  life 
are  not  to  be  found  by  going  to  the  theatre, 
but  often  by  staying  at  home.  There  is  not  a 
week  in  which  there  are  not  tragedies  enacted 
that  are  more  effecting  than  any  that  literature 
has  ever  embalmed.  There  is  hardly  a  family 
in  which,  watched  from  year  to  year,  there  are 
not  things,  rightly  taken,  rightly  judged  and  ap- 
preciated, more  exquisite  than  anything  repre- 
sented by  art,  or  by  tragedy — things  that  are 
simply  indescribable.  I  see  them;  and  while, 
as  yet,  the  impression  is  fresh  upon  me,  I  say  to 
myself,  "Ah,  if  I  might  but  preach  now,  how  I 
could  set  the  truth  forth  !  "  But  it  fades. 

When  the  farmer  rises  in  the  morning,  and 
sees  upon  the  windows  the  most  exquisite  art, 
the  etching  of  frost-pictures  he  wonders  how 
nature,  in  her  careless  mood,  can  work  out  that 
which  it  would  be  the  ambition  of  the  deftest 
hand  in  the  world  to  do;  and  as  he  looks,  it  dis- 
solves before  his  breath.  The  warmth  of  his 
presence  destroys  it  all.  I  look  upon  human 
experiences,  from  place  to  place,  transiently, 
evanescently,  and,  as  it  were,  the  very  warmth 
of  my  feeling  effaces  them.  I  cannot  describe 
them.  Who  does  not  know  a  great  many  such 
cases?  Look  Tat  the  bounties  of  some,  the 
charity  and  lenity  of  others,  the  justice 
against  one's  self  of , others,  the  self-denial  and 

120 


burden-bearing,  here  and  there,  of  yet  others. 
Why,  life  is  full  of  these  things.  Because  they 
are  not  put  upon  a  pedestal,  and  because  men 
are  not  shouting  their  praises,  we  are  apt  to  sup- 
pose that  acts  of  heroism  are  occasional. 

INACTIVITY. 

A     MAN  rusts  out  more  by  inactivity  in  a  year 
than  he  wears  out  by  wholesome   activity 
in  a  lifetime.     A  man's  sum  of  enjoyment  de- 
pends upon  what  he  has  in  himself. 

BENEFIT  OF  IDEALS. 

T DEALS  make  blessed  discontent ;  not  mur.mur- 
i.  ing,  not  repining,  but  aspiration.  A  love  for 
that  which  is  better  is  divine  in  man. 

LIMBER-BACKED. 

IF  we  have  once  come  to  the  habit  of  feeling 
vigorous  and  intense  disapprobation  of  things 
evil,  we  shall  be  in  but  little  danger  of  being 
drawn  astray  by  them.  But  no  man  can  come 
into  such  a  habit,  who  is  limber-backed  in  his  dis- 
position. 

CONTENTMENT. 

A  CCEPT  your  lot  as  a  man  does  a  piece  of 
£\  rugged  ground,  and  begin  to  get  out  the 
rocks  and  roots  to  deepen  and  mellow  the  soil, 
to  enrich  and  plant  it. 

NATURE'S  HINTS  OF  GRACE. 

WHERE  is  a  very  limited  hint  in  nature  of 
the  provisions  of  grace.      There  is  a  very 
limited  idea  of  atonement   and  of  regeneration 
in  nature.     A  broken   bone  will  grow  together 
again.     There  is  in  nature,  in  certain  stages,  and 

121 


tip  to  certain  points,  a  kind  of  provision  for  res- 
toration from  mischiefs;  but  beyond  that  there 
is  no  provision  at  all.  Let  a  man  take  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  prussic  acid,  and  then  let  him  get 
back  to  his  former  state  if  he  can. 

SANCTIFIED    PEOPLE. 

IF   God  were  to  blow  the  trumpet  to-day  and 
call  only  sanctified  persons,  there  would  not 
be  one  to  march  under  His  banner. 

IMMORTALITY. 

WE  are  all  marching  thither.  We  are  all  go- 
ing home.  Men  shiver  at  the  idea  that  they 
are  going  to  die;  but  this  world  is  only  a  nest.  We 
are  scarcely  hatched  out  of  it  here.  We  do  not 
know  ourselves.  We  have  strange  feelings  that 
do  not  interpret  themselves.  The  mortal  in  us  is 
crying  out  for  the  immortal.  As  in  the  night, 
the  child,  waking  with  some  vague  and  nameless 
terror,  cries  out  to  express  its  fear  and  dread,  and 
its  cry  is  interpreted  in  the  mother's  heart,  who 
runs  to  the  child  and  lays  her  hand  upon  it,  and 
quiets  it  to  sleep  again.  So  do  you  not  suppose 
that  the  ear  of  God  hears  our  disturbances  and 
trials  and  tribulations  in  life?  Do  you  not  sup- 
pose that  He  who  is  goodness  itself  cares  for 
you?  Do  you  suppose  that  He  whose  royal 
name  is  Love  has  less  sympathy  for  you  than  a 
mother  has  for  her  babe?  Let  the  world  rock. 
If  the  foot  of  God  is  on  the  cradle,  fear  not. 
Look  up,  take  courage,  hope,  and  hope  to  the 
end. 


A 


THOUGHTS— FEELINGS— DESIRES. 

MAN  is  what  he  thinks,  a  man  is  what  he 
feels,  a  man  is  what  he  desires. 

122 


NATURE  GOD'S  PHENOMENA. 

IS  Nature  mere  phenomena  ?     Or   is   it   God's 
phenomena,    meant   to    convey    something 
deeper  than  the   body   catches — something   for 
the  soul? 

GIVING  ADVICE. 

MEN    are    always   willing    to    give    advice. 
Sometimes  it  is  wise  to  lake  it  from  one's 
neighbors. 

OBSCURE  HEROES. 

THERE  is  great  deal  of  heroism  in  the  shop, 
and  in  the  very  streets  of  life;  for  whoever 
does  right  in  spite  of  temptation;  whoever  en- 
dures patiently  in  spite  of  the  annoyances  of 
life;  whoever,  knowing  that  neither  the  trumpet 
nor  the  newspaper  will  ever  know  anything 
about  it,  as  in  the  sight  of  God  and  only  in  the 
sight  of  God,  not  appreciated  nor  even  known 
among  men,  maintains,  for  Christ's  sake,  the 
beauty  of  moral  quality,  is  a  hero,  although  he 
is  an  obscure  one.  Oh,  the  unregarded  heroes ! 
Oh,  the  mothers  that  sacrifice  themselves  for 
their  children !  Oh,  the  children  that  deny 
themselves  every  inducement  to  exaltation  and 
to  future  prosperity,  to  care  for  their  aged  par- 
ents, giving  up  every  one  of  the  ambitions  of  life  ! 
All  those  that  in  lowly  places  are  seeking  to  fol- 
low after  Christ,  are  heroes;  and  their  heroism 
will  one  day  flash  out  and  be  revealed. 

VALUE  OF  SUFFERING. 

THERE  is  triumph   where  there  is    suffering 
that  has    self-denial  in  it,  and  where  that 
self-denial    means  the    emancipation    of   nobler 
elements  from  the  bondage  of  lower  ones. 

123 


A  WISE  MAXIM. 

GEN.  GRANT'S  words,  "When  is  the  time 
to  show  a  man's  self  friendly  except  when 
his  friend  has  made  a  mistake  ?"     Form  one  of 
those  moral  principles  that   address   themselves 
to  the  universal  conscience. 

BORN  INTO  SPEAKING. 

I  RE  MEMBER  very  well,  when  I  was  born 
into  speaking.  I  had  made  faint  efforts  at 
writing;  but  there  were  wise  men  that  edited  the 
Boston  Recorder  then,  and  they  did  not  print 
what  I  wrote.  I  remember  feeling  desperate 
about  it.  But  I  remember,  in  a  little  debating 
society — The  Hamiltonian, — standing  up  to  say 
a  few  things  I  had  prepared  to  say;  and  the  im- 
pulse came  on  me,  such  as  I  never  felt  before, 
but  shall  never  cease  to  feel  as  long  as  I  live;  and 
I  astonished  myself,  and  astonished  all  the  boys 
around  me,  too.  They  did  not  dream  that  any 
such  stream  could  come  out  of  such  a  well  as 
that !  And  from  that  day  to  this  that  impulse 
never  died — the  being  born  into  the  knowledge 
and  consciousness  and  certainty  that  I  had  it 
in  me  to  speak.  It  never  stopped. 

A  LOCK  OF  HAIR. 

WE  are  children  that  know  very  little  about 
our  Father.  I  am  not  superstitious,  but  I 
believe  in  talismans.  I  have  a  lock  of  auburn 
hair — my  mother's.  It  connects  me  with  her. 
Doubtless  my  little  hands  lay  upon  her  head. 
She  nursed  me  upon  her  bosom.  All  my  life 
she  has  been  my  stay.  To  me  that  lock  of  hair 
is  worth  more  than  gold  or  jewels.  To  my  out- 
ward and  physical  man,  perhaps,  it  is  not  worth 
anything,  but  to  my  inward  man,  my  sentimental 

124 


nature,  it  is  without  price.  All  precious  things 
could  not  equal  it.  I  never  saw  her  except  as 
a  babe;  I  was  a  three-  year-old  child  when  she 
died;  and  therefore  I  have  no  association  per- 
sonally with  her.  Some  few  filmy  and  flitting 
things  remain  in  my  babyhood's  memory  ;  but 
this  connects  me  with  her.  It  is  a  cord  stronger 
than  silver  or  gold,  iron  or  steel  could  be  made. 
Now,  I  am  also  a  child  of  God;  and  when  I 
gather  together  all  the  best  ideas 'of  Him  they 
are  not  much  more  than  enough  to  make  a  lock 
of  His  hair;  but  they  hold  me  to  Him.  There 
is  to  come  a  disclosure  of  Him  that  is  so 
transcendent  that  now  there  is  not  only  no  lan- 
guage for  it,  but  no  foundation  in  human  con- 
sciousness for  it.  Our  conceit  leads  us  all  the 
time  to  think  that  we  can  picture  the  secret  of 
truth,  and  measure  its  circumference  and  di- 
ameter. We  can  take  the  measurement  of  lim- 
ited things;  but  that  egotism  which  leads  us  to 
suppose  we  can  measure  God,  so  that  we  can 
fully  comprehend  Him,  is  our  supreme  mis- 
take. 

AGES  LIKE  FAMILY  GROUPS. 

AGES  are  like  family   groups  :  they  had  bet- 
ter mind  their  own  business,  and  not  mind 
that  of  others;  therefore  it  is  an  impertinence 
for  one  age 'to  discuss  those  great  principles  which 
belong  to  another. 

LIKE  A  SHIP. 

MANY  think  that  the  church  is  like  a  ship, 
that  never  should  leak  or  change  its  form 
on  the  voyage.     If  anything  happens  on  board, 
everybody  expects   fire,  or  flood,  or  some  great 
disaster. 

135 


FIRST  EFFORTS  AT  GOODNESS. 

MOST    men's   first   efforts    at    goodness   are 
very   crooked  and  shallow,  like   a  man's 
furrow  in  a  newly  plowed  piece  of  ground:  hit 
or  miss,  and  oftener  miss. 

TWO  VIEWS  OF  GOD. 

THE  two  views  are  these:  one  says  that  God 
built  the  world  as  a  house,  and  that  He  is 
master  of  the  house;  and  the  other  says  He  built 
the  world  as  a  house,  and  then  locked  himself 
out. 

HEADLIFE— HEARTLIFE. 

THE  life  of  some  men  is  so  much  in  the  heart 
that  if  you  were  to  cut  off  their  heads  they 
would'nt  miss  much;  and  the  life  of  others  is  so 
much  in    the  head  that  you  could  almost  take 
out  their  heart  and  they  wouldn't  miss  much. 

FATHERHOOD. 

WHAT  would  you  think  of  an  earthly  father 
who  was  so  perfect  that  his  children  could 
not  possibly  have  anything  in  common  with  him; 
who  was  so  perfect  that  he  was  above  their  in- 
fantile sports;  who  was  too  wise  to  talk  of  their 
infantile  follies;  who  felt  too  deeply  to  have  sym- 
j  athy  with  their  little  feelings;  and  who  had  no 
connection  with  their  incipient  life,  and  rude, 
imperfect  ways  ?  Would  such  a  character  be 
admirable  in  a  father  ?  He  might  as  well  be 
carved  out  of  marble;  or  he  might  as  well  be 
Maelzel's  automaton,  and  with  turned  crank,  or 
wound-up  spring,  work  out  all  the  duties  he 
owes  to  his  family  ! 

126 


FAME. 

THERE  are  some  things  by  which  a  man 
can  connect  himself  with  his  time.  In 
material  things  there  may  be  artists  and  engineers 
that  are  conscious  of  their  inspiration,  and  that 
work  not  without  a  dim  consciousness  that  their 
names  will  be  known.  I  do  not  believe  that 
Michael  Angelo,  or  Raphael,  or  Giorgione,  or 
Titian,  or  Correggio,  was  without  those  thoughts. 
So  one  may  build  a  bridge,  as  a  man  of  illustri- 
ous name  built  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  and  may 
be  conscious,  as  well  he  may  be,  "  This  will 
carry  my  name  down  to  immortality."  A  man 
who  sings  a  song,  or  gives  musical  wings  to  a 
hymn,  that  it  may  fly  over  all  the  earth,  carrying 
courage  and  joy,  love  and  peace,  may,  as  Watts, 
Doddridge,  and  Charles  Wesley  might  have  done, 
say,  "I  never  shall  be  forgotton  so  long  as 
breath  remains  to  mankind."  So  long  as  any 
tear  is  to  be  wiped  away  by  the  lyrics  of  the  soul, 
such  men  will  not  be  forgotten.  They  felt  it, 
and  so  they  sang;  and  not  from  ambition,  but 
from  the  irresistible  impulse  of  song,  they  will 
be  immortal. 

THE  DEVIL  LONG-HEADED. 

I     THINK   no  man  ever   cheated   the   devil, 
and  I  think  no  man  ever  will.     I   have  no 
doubt   that  the   devil  overreaches  himself  and 
cheats   himself:  but  in  any  transaction  between 
you  and  him,  he  is  longer-headed  than  you  are. 

THE  KEY  OF  NATURE. 

IT  is   as    right  for  some  persons  to  have   the 
chamber  of  the  soul  unlocked  by  the  key  of 
nature,  as  for  them  to  have  it  unlocked  by  the 
key  of  the  catechism. 

127 


JOHN  BROWN. 

TOHN  BROWN  felt  that  his  whole  life  was 
«/  good  for  nothing  except  as  an  offering  to 
others.  He  went  to  death  as  men  go  to  a  ban- 
quet, and  as  he  was  led  forth  to  the  sacrifice  he 
kissed  a  little  child. 

LOVE  LIKE  RINGING  BELLS. 

I  THINK  it  is  one  of  the  hardest  things  in 
the  world  to  say,  I  love  you.  I  don't  know 
why.  A  man  who  could  look  a  woman  in  the 
face  and  say,  1  love  you,  without  shrinking, 
ought  to  shrink.  Love  is  like  the  ringing  of 
bells;  they  sound  sweetly  while  they  are  chim- 
ing; but  after  all  it  is  hard  work  to  ring  them. 
And  I  marvel  at  the  deep,  manly  and  tender  love 
which  Christ  poured  out  upon  His  disciples. 
They  found  in  Him  united  both  father  and 
mother. 

GREEDY  MEN. 

'T^HERE  are  many  men  so  greedy  that  they 
1  feel  what  their  neighbors  make,  that  they 
might  have  made,  is  taken  away  from  them;  and 
that  they  have  lost  all  that  they  do  not  get  of 
what  they  meant  to  get.  Their  eyes  grow  large, 
their  imagination  becomes  fevered,  and  they 
mean  to  rush  over  the  course  and  scoop  up 
wealth  by  the  armful;  but  they  lose  their  judg- 
ment and  accuracy  before  they  know  it,  and 
stumble,  and  measure  their  whole  length  in  the 
dust,  on  the  ground. 

THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SELF. 

IT  is  a  bad  thing  for  a  man  to  think  too  much 
about  himself,  to  talk  too  much  about  him- 
self, or  to  examine  himself  too  much.     The  less 

128 


he  indulges  in  these  things  the  better  he  is  off. 
Let  a  man  have  a  sense  of  duty,  and  take  a  right 
direction  in  life,  and  then  sweep  and  lunge  to- 
ward things  outward  as  much  as  possible. 

THE  RIGHT  OF  SPEECH 

'{  T     HAVE  a  right  to  think,  to  speak,  and  to 
1     do."     But  you  have  the  other  right,  also, 
to  hold   your   tongue.     You  are  not  bound  to 
speak  whenever  you  have  a  mind  to. 


A 


PRAYER. 

PRAYER  is  not  a  thread  upon  which  men 
are  to  see  how  many  texts  they  can  string. 

CRITICISM   AND  SATIRE. 

TO  watch  to  see  what  is  awkward  in  others; 
to  search  out  the  infirmities  of  men;  to  go 
out  like  a  street-sweeper,  or  a  universal  scavenger, 
to  collect  the  faults  and  failings  of  people;  to 
carry  these  things  about  as  if  they  were  cherries 
or  flowers;  to  throw  them  out  of  your  bag  or 
pouch,  and  make  them  an  evening  repast  or  a 
noonday  meal,  or  the  amusement  of  a  social 
hour,  enlivened  by  unfeeling  criticisms,  heartless 
jests,  and  cutting  sarcasms;  to  take  a  man  up  as 
you  would  a  chicken,  and  gnaw  his  flesh  from 
his  very  bones,  and  then  lay  him  down,  saying, 
with  fiendish  exultation,  ''There  is  his  skeleton" 
— this  is  devilish  ! 

THE  TEST  OF  MANHOOD. 

WHO  cannot  do  things  that  are  so  easy  that 
they  do  themselves?     The  test  of  man- 
hood is  the  power  to  do  with  cheerfulness  things 
that  are  difficult  and  disagreeable. 

129 


BUTS  AND  IFS. 

NEVER,  when  you  see  a  thing  to  be  right, 
stand  shaking  and  quaking,  and  say,  "  But 
then."     That  "  but  then  "  is  a  devil  damned.     If 
and  but  have  destroyed  more  souls  than  any  fiend 
in  hell. 

THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH. 

I  LOOK  upon  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as 
being  dead  in  one  branch  and  another,  and 
as  being  bark-bound  and  worm-eaten,  but  as 
having  some  real  good  sap  in  it  yet,  and  some 
living  boughs,  and  as  bearing  some  fair  fruit;  and 
I  can  say,  "  God  be  thanked  for  the  good  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church."  "But,''  says  one, 
''do  you  think  one  religious  system  as  good  as 
another  ? "  By  no  manner  of  means.  There  are 
systems  that  seem  to  me  to  be  wonderfully 
adapted  to  avoid  the  evil  and  promote  the  good, 
and  to  be  as  much  better  than  some  other  systems 
as  a  mason's  trowel  is  better  than  a  chip  with 
which  to  lay  brick  in  a  wall. 

LIFE,  A  HULL  OF  SELFISHNESS. 

MEN  have  a  little  boat  of  piety,  which  runs 
up  and  down  the  waves  of  their  experience; 
but  their  life  is  a  great  hull  of  selfishness,  the 
bow  of  which  is  rigged  with  the  lower  passions. 

DREAMING   OF   RICHES. 

THOUSANDS  of  boys  are  dreaming  of  grow- 
ing suddenly  rich — and  I  call  a  man  a  boy 
as  long  as  he  is  foolish;  so  that  the  boyhood  of 
a  great  many,  you  see,  goes  with  them  clear 
through  life  !  There  are  thousands  of  boys,  of 
all  ages,  that  are  dreaming  about  going  to  bed 
]  oor,  and  waking  up  rich. 

130 


FALLING  FROM  GRACE. 

|F  a  man  falls  and  it  don't  hurt  him  much, 
1     it  wan't  grace  he  fell  from.     A  feller's  apt 

to  be  smashed  up  if  he  falls  from  grace,  I  tell 

ye." 

THE   AIR   OF   THE   FUTURE   WORLD. 

IT  is  how  much  of  the  invisible  we  can  bring 
into  this  life  that  makes  this  life  rich  and 
valuable.  I  will  tell  you  a  secret  of  gardening. 
Turnips  and  other  crops  that  have  long  roots, 
and  depend  mostly  for  their  nourishment  on  the 
soil,  exhaust  the  soil;  while  those  crops  that  have 
broad  leaves,  and  take  the  greater  portion  of 
their  nourishment  from  the  air,  organizing  it, 
and  turning  it  into  the  soil,  enrich  the  soil.  Now 
let  me  tell  you  that  that  which  makes  this  life 
rich  is  that  broad-leaved  experience  which  de- 
rives its  support  from  the  air  of  the  future  world. 

MEN  LIKE  TULIPS 

I  THINK  God  makes  men,  in  some  respects, 
as  he  makes  tulips.  In  the  autumn  of  the 
year  the  next  year's  blossom  is  stored  up,  all 
ready  to  come  forth,  and  there  is  food  enough 
in  it  to  get  it  out  of  the  ground.  Children  are 
bulbs.  There  is  parent  enough  in  them  to  last 
till  they  can  organize  character  for  themselves. 

THE  TONGUE. 

OH,  commend  me  to  that  man  who  carries  his 
dagger  in  his  hand,  and  not  in  his  mouth  ! 
Commend  me  to  that  man  who  only  dips  his 
dagger  in  poison  which  the  apothecary  can  make, 
and  who  does  not  dip  it  in  the  infernal,  rancor- 
ous poison  which  Satan  brews  !  There  are  men 
that  we  have  seen,  the  flap  of  whose  tongue,  not 

131 


in  a  single  instance  merely,  but  in  scores  of 
instances,  makes  the  difference  between  heaven 
on  earth  and  hell  on  earth. 

PERSONAL  SLANDEROUS  REPORTS. 

IT  matters  not  if  men  roll  my  name  about  in 
slanderous  reports,  as  a  boy  would  roll  a 
foot-ball  down  a  dirty  street,  so  long  as  the  cause 
of  Gcd  succeeds. 

WHAT  IS  NOT  PROMISED. 

GOD  does  not  promise  that  if  a  man  shuts  him- 
self off  from  the  world,  and  prays,  and 
sings,  and  reads  good  books,  and  neglects  his 
worldly  business,  that  he  will  make  up  to  him  all 
that  he  loses  by  such  neglect.  When  a  man 
opens  a  store  on  Broadway,  God  does  not  say  to 
him,  "Now,  you  have  rented  your  building,  and 
purchased  your  goods,  and  hired  your  clerks; 
and  if  you  will  go  back  into  your  counting-room, 
and  spend  your  time  in  reading,  and  singing,  and 
praying,  I  will  see  to  the  fore  part  of  the  store." 

GOD'S    PROVIDENCE. 

'T^HERE  is  a  providence  of  God,  a  thinking  of 
1  God  for  us;  but  it  is  no  such  providence 
or  thinking  as  ever  takes  the  place  of,  or  inter- 
feres with,  our  own  personal  wisdom.  There  is 
a  providence  of  God,  but  it  never  weaves  cloth. 

A  LETTER  OF  CREDIT. 

NOW  Ggd  gives  to  every  man  a  circular  letter 
of  credit  for  life,  and  says;     ''Whenever 
you  get  to  a  place  where  you  need  assistance, 
take  your  letter  to  the  Banker  and  the  needed 
assistance  will  be  given  you." 

132 


LIFE  A  FLIGHT  OF  STAIRS. 

WE   are  living  on   a   flight  of  stairs  in  this 
world,  and  we  shall  not  touch  the  chamber 
floor  till  we  touch  the  vestibule  of  heaven. 

THE   BIBLE  A  PLAIN  BOOK. 

WHAT  a  coarse  book  this  Bible  is.  It  has 
never  been  to  school  to  get  refined,  so  we 
have  to  take  it  just  as  we  find  it.  These  are 
plain  words:  "If  a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and 
hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a  liar.  For  he  that 
loveth  not  his  brother,  whom  he  hath  seen,  how 
can  he  love  God,  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ? " 
Show  me  a  man  that  is  proud  and  over-reaching, 
who  professes  to  be  pious,  and  I  will  tell  you 
that  his  piety  is  all  flummery.  There  is  not  a  bit 
of  piety  in  such  a  man. 

DEEDS  OF  KINDNESS. 

DEEDS  of  kindness  must  not  be  occasional, 
and  as  enforced  duties;  they  must  be  the 
spontaneous  acts  of  an  abiding  disposition  of 
Christian  love.  They  must  grow  out  of  you  as 
grass  grows  out  of  the  summer-warmed  ground. 
You  don't  have  to  coax  grass  to  grow;  you  can't 
coax  it  not  to  grow. 

A  DEVIL   INSIDE. 

IF  Satan  be  clothed  like  an  angel  of  light,  and 
every  feather  in  his  wing  be  of  silver  or  of 
gold,  he  is  the  devil  inside,  notwithstanding. 

BETRAYING  CHRISTIANS. 

IT  is  not  in  the  power  of  all  the  Bolingbrokes, 
and  Voltaires,  and  Tom   Faines,  and  Rous- 
seaus,  and  other  great  names  that  write  infidel 


matters — it  is  not  in  the  power  of  all  the  locust 
hosts  of  infidels — to  do  that  damage  to  true 
religion  which  may  be  done  by  an  unfaithful 
church,  or  by  the  ungodly  testimony,  in  practical 
life,  of  professors  of  religion;  for  betraying 
Christians  are  the  devil's  colporteurs,  who  peddle 
tracts  of  infidelity;  not  printed  tracts,  but  living 
epistles — their  own  examples. 

GENIUS  AND  INDUSTRY. 

/^ENIUS  needs  industry  as  much  as  industry 
\J  needs  genius. 

THE  OIL  OF  GRACE. 

NOW,  if  a  man  brings  his  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings into  higher  Christian  experience,  when 
he  takes  them  out,  his  piety  is  all  radiant;  but  no 
sooner  is  it  brought  in  contact  with  the  world 
than  its  radiancy  is  lost.  Therefore  there  is  no 
figure  in  the  Bible  that  I  am  aware  of  which 
compares  the  Christian  to  a  coal  of  fire,  or  glow- 
ing iron.  He  is  always  compared  to  a  torch,  or 
to  a  lamp  that  will  never  burn  low  if  you  keep 
it  supplied  with  oil.  We  are,  as  Christians,  to 
keep  ourselves  supplied  with  the  oil  of  grace. 

REVIVAL  CONVERTS. 

NOW,  there  are  many  who  enlist  on  the  pa- 
rade-ground of  revivals,  with  the  expecta- 
tion that  when  they  come  out  they  will  be  happy, 
and  feel  good  all  their  life. 

STRIKING  BOTTOM. 

THERE  is  many  a  man  who,  when  he  struck 
bottom,  thanked  God   for   it — though  he 
cried  all  the  way  down. 

134 


MODERATION. 

THERE  is  a  kind  of  moderation  that  is  in  the 
mind  what  perfect  health  is  in  the  organs 
of  the  body.  And  there  is  a  kind  of  greediness 
that  overlays  success.  If  a  bird  should  seek  to 
hasten "  forward  its  young  by  putting  its  eggs  in 
an  oven,  they  might  be  roasted,  but  they  would 
not  be  hatched  any  sooner. 

BEACONS. 

'T^HERE  are  some  men  who  seem  to  be  con- 
1  tinued  in  life  to  serve  as  beacons  of  warn- 
ing, rather  than  guiding  lights,  to  those  around 
them.  It  would  be  difficult  to  tell  what  a  great 
many  men  who  are  in  communities  live  for,  or 
what  they  do;  and  among  these  you  will  gener- 
ally find  those  who  say,  "  The  world  owes  us  a 
living  "  The  world  owes  them  a  living  for  what? 
For  being  paupers  in  it;  for  being  drudges;  for 
being  moths  that  consume,  instead  of  productive 
insects  that  multiply,  as  bees  do,  the  stock. 

NO  BETTER  THAN  A  BUG. 

IF  I  am  only  that  which  I  have  been,  I  am  of 
all  men  most  miserable.     I  am  no   better 
than  a  leaf,  no  better  than  the  bug  that  is  on  it. 

STARTING  RIGHT. 

A  FTER  a  man  has  once  commenced  life,  he 
£\  cannot  go  back  and  start  again.  He  can- 
not rid  himself  of  his  responsibilities,  and  take 
an  entirely  new  set  of  papers,  and  begin  anew. 

MAN  NOT  AN  OYSTER. 

WHEN  God  wanted  sponges  and  oysters,  he 
made  them,  and  put  one  on  a  rock,  and 
the  other  in  the  mud.     When  he  made  man,  he 

13.1 


did  not  make  him  to  be  a  sponge  or  an  oyster; 
he  made  him  with  feet,  and  hands,  and  head, 
and  heart,  and  vital  blood,  and  a  place  to  use 
them,  and  said  to  him,  ''  Go  !  work  !  " 

NO  NEED  OF  A  DEVIL. 

THE  strongest  evidence  I  can  think  of  against 
there  being  a  devil,  is  that  there  is  no  need 
of  one.  Men  do  works  of  evil  in  such  abund- 
ance that  there  would  seem  to  be  nothing  left 
for  a  devil  to  do.  These  things  have  been  per- 
mitted from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  our 
day,  and  by  a  Being  who  is  said  to  be  too  good 
to  let  an  evil  spirit  live  !  But  when  I  look  at 
the  facts,  this  namby-pamby  talk  about  the  im- 
possibility of  God's  creating  a  principle  of  evil 
is  simply  contemptible  to  me.  A  man  who  has 
not  nerve,  and  brawn  and  bone  enough  to  look 
at  things  as  they  are,  and  admit  them,  I  don't 
know  what  business  such  a  man  has  to  live  ! 

NOVELS  AS  PREACHERS. 

EVEN  novels  are  becoming  preachers;  and 
better  preachers  than  are  many  pulpits. 
For  the  novels  of  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
contain  a  better  Gospel  than  the  pulpits,  if  you 
include  the  pulpits  of  the  Greek  Church,  of  the 
Roman  Church,  of  formal  Protestantism,  and  of 
the  warring  sects.  A  dead  Gospel  is  a  hideous 
heresy. 

LIKE  A  MAY  MORNING. 

THERE  are  men  who  smell  like  a  May  morn- 
ing all  through  the  business  hours  of  the 
clay.    They  save  their  ugliness  for  their  wife  and 
children  at  home. 

13Q 


CARE  A  NETTLE-HEDGE. 

TO  be  in  perfect  health,  one  must  be  in  such 
a  condition  that  he  does  not  know  that 
there  is  anything  of  him.  Now  suppose  a  man 
is  sound  in  every  organ,  but  that  in  the  morning 
he  goes  through  a  nettle-hedge,  what  effect  does 
it  have  upon  him  ?  Why,  although  he  is  in  good 
health,  although  his  lungs  are  right,  and  his  heart 
is  right,  and  his  nerves  are  right,  and  every  other 
part  of  his  body  is  right,  yet,  all  day  long  he  is 
chafed,  and  fretted,  and  irritated,  just  because 
in  the  morning  he  went  through  that  nettle- 
hedge.  Well,  care  is  to  the  mind  what  nettles 
are  to  the  body. 

MEN  LIKE  HARPS. 

MEN  are  not  music-boxes,  which,  when  wound 
up,  carry  their  own  players  inside  of  them ; 
but  they  are  haros,  which  must  be  touched  from 
without.  Each  man's  heart,  therefore,  must  be 
touched  by  other  men.  We  are  to  touch  other 
men's  hearts.  Other  men's  hearts  are  belfries, 
-and  there  we  must  ring  out  all  our  chimes. 

HERESY  HUNTERS. 

THERE'  are  in  the  Church  what  may  be  called 
heresy-hunters.  They  always  carry  a  rifle, 
a  spiritual  rifle,  under  their  arm.  You  will  find 
them  forever  outlying,  watching  for  heresy,  not 
so  much  in  their  own  hearts,  not  so  much  in 
their  own  church,  not  so  much  in  their  own  min- 
isters, but  in  other  people's  hearts,  and  other 
people's  churches,  and  other  people's  ministers. 
If  any  man  happens  to  hold  an  opinion  respect- 
ing any  doctrine  which  does  not  accord  with 
their  own  peculiar  views,  they  are  spread  abroad 
to  run  him  down.  They  are  taking  care  of,  and 

137 


defending,  the  faith  !  They  are  searching  for 
foxes,  and  wolves,  and  bears,  that  they  suppose 
are  laying  waste  God's  husbandry  !  They  never 
do  anything  except  fire  at  other  folks  and  other 
things.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Nimrod  was  a  very 
good  fellow,  in  his  own  poor,  miserable  way;  but 
a  Nimrod  minister  is  the  meanest  of  all  sorts  of 
hunters  ! 

OX-LIKE  BRAINS. 

A  MAN  whose  brain  puts  him   alongside  of 
the  ox  may  low  till  the  judgment  day,  but 
he  will  not  be  more  than  an  ox. 

IF  I  HAD  ONLY  KNOWN. 

THEY  are  always  saying,  "  If  I  had  only 
known."  They  are  like  the  farmer  who, 
having  lost  his  crop  from  want  of  diligence  in 
the  Spring,  went  to  harrowing  and  hoeing  in  No- 
vember, to  regain  what  he  had  lost,  but  who, 
failing  in  the  attempt,  said,  "  Oh,  if  I  had  only 
done  right  in  the  Spring  !  "  It  is  enough  that 
you  made  a  fool  of  yourself  in  the  Spring.  Be- 
cause you  made  a  fool  of  yourself  in  the  Spring, 
is  no  reason  why  you  should  make  a  fool  of  your- 
self again  in  the  Autumn. 

DO-NOTHINGS. 

OERSONS  there  are  who  go  tagging  after 
1  meetings  all  the  time,  and  doing  nothing 
themselves. 

INFLUENCE. 

YOUR  influence  is  working  for  light  or  for 
darkness,  for  purity  or  impurity,  for  good 
or  for  evil. 

138 


IDLENESS. 

WHEN  Satan  would  put  men  to  a  crop  of 
mischief,  he  finds  the  idle  man  already 
prepared,  and  has  scarcely  the  trouble  of  sowing. 

HOW  TO  TREAT  DIRT. 

IN  the  collisions  of  men  pushed  on  by  pleasure, 
or  ambition,  or  avarice,  there  is  a  constant 
play  and  counter-play  of  petty  provocations, 
petty  tales,  mean  deceptions,  ungrateful  sup- 
plantings,  repaying  fairness  with  foulness,  honor 
with  dishonesty.  Now  a  noble  mind  rids  himself 
of  these  wrongs  as  he  does  his  garments  of  spat- 
tered mud.  He  lets  them  alone  while  fresh, 
since  brushing  would  only  spread  them.  He 
waits  till  they  dry,  and  then  cleanses  himself  of 
them  all,  and  lets  the  dirt  fall  back  to  the  dirt. 

SOUL  COMMERCE. 

I  SEE  young  people  going,  after  marriage,  to 
set  up  housekeeping.  They  go  together  and 
select  a  house  where  they  shall  live,  and  discuss 
it — it  is  very  sweet  and  beautiful.  They  go  to- 
gether to  the  upholsterer,  and  agree  upon  the 
carpets,  the  curtains,  and  all  the  other  furnish- 
ings. It  is  a  charming  little  time  that  they  have 
together.  Those  are  points  in  one's  life  that  are 
very  pleasing,  very  agreeable,  and  that  ought  not 
to  be  forgotten.  They  live  together,  furnishing 
the  house;  and  then  they  go  for  books — for 
fashion  requires  that  men  should  have  some 
books  somewhere.  They  go  together,  also,  for 
engravings,  for  etchings,  for  paintings,  and  for  a 
little  jewelry.  So  they  set  up  their  housekeep- 
ing. Then  they  say,  "Now  then,  we  must  invite 
company;  we  must  form  a  circle  of  friends." 
With  many  little  disagreements  that  set  them 


slightly  apart  they  select;  and  they  have  parties, 
and  go  to  parties,  and  enlarge  the  bounds  of 
their  outside  life;  and  then  when  two  or  three 
years  have  passed  away,  what  have  they  done 
for  housekeeping  inside  ?  Has  he  more  gener- 
osity ?  and  did  she  create  it  ?  Has  she  more  pa- 
tience ?  and  did  he  draw  it  out  for  her  ?  Is  the 
strife  between  them,  as  to  which  shall  yield  to 
the  other,  or  as  to  which  shall  control  the  other? 
Is  it  as  to  which  shall  set  out  the  other's  taste 
and  shut  up  his  own,  or  which  shall  insist  that 
that  one's  taste  shall  rule  ?  The  beauty,  the 
purity,  the  sweetness,  and  self-denial  of  love — 
oh,  how  many  are  united  in  these!  How  many 
persons  come  together  by  primal  affection?  The 
priest  cannot  do  anything  but  put  on  the  ring 
and  give  the  blessing.  Men  and  women  are  mar- 
ried by  their  own  covenants  to  each  other;  and 
then  they  begin  to  enjoy  their  life  together  in 
their  house,  and  in  its  employments;  and  then 
comes  a  larger  commerce.  But  what  commerce 
is  going  on  in  the  crystal  chamber  of  the  soul? 
How  are  they  living  with  each  other?  By  what 
part  of  their  nature  are  they  living?  Is  there  a 
steady  ascent?  Is  there  that  ladder  which  Jacob 
saw?  Yea,  in  many  a  family  so  poor  that  their 
pillow  may  be  said  to  have  been  like  Jacob's — a 
stone — there  has  been  the  ladder  that  lifted  them 
up  to  the  higher  round  of  life,  and  angels  have 
been  seen  ascending  and  descending.  Blessed 
are  the  poor  whom  angels  visit. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

ALL  the  English-speaking  people  on  the  globe 
have  written  among  the  names  that  shall 
never  die,  the  name  of   that  scoffed,  detested, 
mob-beaten   Wendell   Phillips.     The   men   that 

140 


would  not  defile  their  lips  with  his  name  are  to- 
day thanking  God  that  he  lived. 

CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

JUST  as  the  first  tentative  notes  of  waking 
birds  began  to  be  heard;  while  the  leaf  un- 
shaken was  yet  loaded  with  dew;  while  nature 
was  cool,  and  pure,  and  tender,  as  if  newly  made 
— in  this  early  morning  hour  it  was  that  Christ 
came  forth  from  the  sepulchre  in  newness  of  life. 

FEW  SEE  THE  ANGEL. 

HOW  few  are  there  that  see  in  their  children 
much  more  than  innocent  little  animals,  at 
first!  They  see  in  them  reasons  of  self-flattery 
further  on.  They  see  in  them  candidates  for 
prosperity  in  life  still  further  on.  Parents  are 
proud  of  their  children's  beauty;  proud  of  their 
early  intelligence;  proud  of  their  grace;  proud 
of  their  winsome  ways  in  life;  but  how  few  peo- 
ple sit  and  brood  upon  their  children  as  heirs  of 
immortality!  How  few  see  the  angel,  or  want  to 
see  it,  in  their  children!  They  are  the  light  of 
the  household;  are  they  the  light  of  eternity? 

DOUBLE-SIGHT. 

WE  must  see  with  both  eyes — the  fleshly  and 
the  spiritual.     Watching  is  the  one  oper- 
ation; praying  is  the  other. 

NAMING  CHURCHES. 

I  WONDER,  when  men  are  naming  churches, 
and  calling  them  "  The  Church  of  Divine 
Love,"  "  The  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  etc., 
that  there  has  never  been  a  church  called  the 
Church  of  Aspiration,  the  church  that  represents 
the  desires  of  those  that  are  longing  and  looking 

141 


up  and  striving  on.  We  have  churches  of  the 
Trinity,  in  which  we  believe,  but  about  which 
we  know  nothing;  but  of  aspiration  we  know  a 
great  deal.  It  has  not  been  the  work  of  Christ 
to  draw  men  up  to  a  higher  level  merely  in  the 
formal  acts  of  worship;  the  effect  of  His  work 
has  been  to  sweeten  every  element  that  belongs 
to  human  nature  from  the  cradle  to  the  coffin, 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest — to  inspire  every 
one  of  those  faculties  which  make  us  men  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  animal  creation.  There  is 
a  climate  of  Jesus  Christ  in  men;  and  all  that  is 
highest  and  best  grows  in  that  climate.  Again 
and  again  we  are  taught  that  great  and  wonder- 
ful as  has  been  that  work  of  Christ  whose  fruits 
are  visible,  and  which  has  filled  the  ages  with 
songs  and  hymns  and  rejoicings,  it  is  but  the 
initial  work — the  beginning. 

THE  MEAN  MAN. 

I  HAVE  great  hope  of  a  wicked  man;  slender 
hope  of  a  mean  one. 

MAN'S  VIEW  OF  GOD. 

I  DO  not  wonder  that,  with  the  thought  which 
most  Christians  have  of  God,  they  are  slow 
to  go  to  Him.  What  man  would  not  be  afraid 
to  make  prayers  to  a  thunderbolt,  if  he  expected 
that  the  result  of  every  prayer  would  be  to  bring 
a  bolt  down  upon  his  head  ?  I  should  not  want 
to  charge  up  before  the  throne  of  God,  if  it  were 
like  charging  before  a  battery. 

FALSE  PROPHESYING. 

IF,  in  your  prophesying,  you  take  God's  com- 
mandments, and  turn  them  end  for  end,  you 
will  find  yourself  prophesy  lies. 

142 


SOUL  HEALTH. 

F)  ELIGION  is  to  the  soul  what  health  is  to 
|\  the  body  —  it  is  the  right  ordering  of  all  the 
faculties.  Many  persons  think  it  is  confined  to 
certain  faculties,  which  must  be  set  buzzing  at 
particular  times. 

SMART  MEN. 

'T^HERE  is  not  one  man  that  is  smart  where 
1  there  are  twenty  men  that  think  they  are; 
and  many  men  are  smart  only  as  flies  are:  they 
make  a  world  of  buzzing,  but  do  not  make  much 
else. 

MEN  LIKE  TREES. 

MEN  are  like  trees;  each  one  must  put  forth 
the  leaf  that  is  created  in  him.     Educa- 
tion is  only  like  good  culture  —  it  changes  the 
size  but  not  the  sort. 

BEAUTY  IN  NATURE. 

WHEN  I  am  a  bankrupt,  and  my  creditor 
takes  my  house  and  my  ground,  I  shall 
laugh  at  him  if  he  thinks  he  has  touched  my 
properties.  Above  my  roof  are  finer  pictures 
than  are  under  it.  In  the  trees  I  have  winged 
instruments  which  a  sheriff  will  hardly  catch. 

EVEN  BETWEEN  THEM. 


'THEY  say  he  don't  believe  in   God.     Wai, 
X       I   guess  it's  pretty  even   between   'em. 
Shouldn't  wonder  if  God  didn't  believe  in  him 
neither." 

WHERE  MEN  DWELL. 

npHE  animal  dwells  where  his  feet  are;  the 
J.      man  where  his  thoughts  are. 

148 


OUR  DUTY  TO  PRACTICE. 

WE  not  unfrequently  hear  men  say,  "  It  is 
easy  for  you,  who  have  a  good  constitu- 
tion and  a  happy  temperament,  and  who  are 
agreeably  circumstanced,  to  do  thus  and  so;  but 
if  you  were  as  bilious  as  I  am;  if  you  were  as 
sick  as  I  am;  if  you  had  to  contend  with  such 
trials  at  home  as  I  have  to;  if  you  were  a  busi- 
ness man,  and  you  had  such  a  harassing  business 
about  your  heels  as  I  have  about  mine,  you 
would  then  have  as  much  anxiety  as  I  have,  and 
you  would  fret  as  much  as  I  do.  It  is  very  easy 
to  preach,  much  easier  than  it  is  to  practice."  I 
have  found  that  out,  that  it  is  a  great  deal  easier 
to  preach  than  it  is  to  practice;  but  it  is  never- 
theless our  duty  to  practice. 

A  MEMORABLE  THING. 

A  MAN  might  frame  and  let  loose  a  star  to 
roll  in  its  orbit,  and  yet  not  have  done  so 
memorable  a  thing  before  God  as  he  who  lets  go 
a  golden-orbed  thought  to  roll  through  the  gen- 
erations of  men. 

MEDITATION. 

MEDITATION  is  largely  a  running  of  the 
mind-mill;  and  it  does  not  do  any  good 
to  run  the  mill  when  there  is  no  grist  in  it. 

FALSE  SPEAKING. 

AVOID  falsehood  in  all  its  varied  forms,  and 
I  repeat,  if  you  sin  at  all,  sin  on  the  side  of 
truth.  When  men  give  you  permission  to  do 
wrong,  let  it  be  as  though  they  gave  you  permis- 
sion to  eat  dirt.  If  you  were  told  that  you  may 
eat  dirt,  you  would  say,  "  I  don't  want  to  eat 
dirt,  and  I  won't  touch  it." 

144 


TRUE  WISDOM. 

THE  wise  men  are  those  that  come  out  best 
at  the  other  end,  not  those  that  dance  the 
nimblest  at  this  end. 

TROUBLE  A  SCHOOLMASTER. 

THERE  is  one,  and  only  one  tree  that  bears 
true  manhood,  and  that  tree  is  trouble. 
Trouble  is  God's  schoolmaster,  and  they  who 
undertake  to  play  truant  will  be  caught.  When 
troubles  come  upon  you,  fly  higher.  And  if  they 
still  strike  you,  fly  higher.  And  by  and  by  they 
shall  not  be  able  to  reach  you. 

RAGGED  INIQUITY. 

T7VERYBODY  sits  in  judgment  on  a  dirty 
JIv  sin;  but  clean  it,  dress  it,  and  polish  it,  and 
there  are  ten  thousand  people  who  think  it  is  not 
so  sinful,  after  all.  It  is  ragged  iniquity  that  is 
sinful;  burnished  iniquity  is  not  quite  so  wicked. 

THE  WORLD  AN  OUT-HOUSE. 

THE  world  is  but  an  out-house  of  creation. 
We  have  not  yet  seen   the  whole.     What 
barns  are  to  mansions,  this  world  is  to  heaven. 

HUMAN  LONGING  FOR  DIVINITY. 

ALL  humanity,  by  its  very  consciousness  of 
weakness,    by  its  very  infirmities,  by  the 
dim  light  of  its  aspirations,  longs  to  find  some- 
thing that  is  divine. 

WHAT  IS  SACRED? 

NOTHING  is  sacred  because  it  has   "come 
down."     It  must  have  an  intrinsic  sacred- 
ness  in  it  which  it  brings  down  with  itself. 

145 


JOYFUL  EXPERIENCES. 

IF  people,  instead  of  seeking  joyful  experiences 
for  themselves,  would  make  other  people's 
experiences  joyful, — would  seek  to  do  good  rath- 
er than  to  be  good,  they  would  accomplish  both 
objects. 

DELICACY. 

DELICACY  is  a  spring  which  God  has  sunk 
in  the  rock,  which  sends  its  quiet  waters 
with  music  down  the  flowery  hillside,  and  which 
is  pure  and  transparent,  because  it   has  at  the 
bottom  no  sediment. 

MAN'S  CHIEF  END. 

E  chief  end  of  man  is  to  glorify  God," 
— not  by  worshiping  him  as  Oriental 
men  worship  princes,  for  their  gorgeousness,  but 
by  transmuting  our  animal  and  carnal  lives  into 
a  superb  life  of  service,  such  as  God's  is,  and  by 
which  he  is,  worthily,  the  head  of  all  things. 

SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 

SCIENCE  and  religion  will  come  together 
coyly  at  first  like  other  lovers,  but  there 
will  be  the  kiss  and  embrace,  and  at  last  they 
will  marry  and  there  will  be  no  more  trouble  be- 
tween them  than  is  usually  found  in  well-regu- 
lated families. 

THE  BIBLE  AND  SECULAR  KNOWLEDGE. 

I   DO  not  believe  that  anything  will  destroy  the 
hold  of  the  Bible  upon  men's  love  and  trust. 
It  may  be  done,  however,  by  claiming  for  it, 
what  it  does  not  claim  for  itself — that  it  is  the 
sum  of  all  secular  knowledge. 

146 


SELF-RELIANCE. 

THE  child  that  is  lugged  through  life  on  the 
back  of  his  parent  is  no  better  than  an  In- 
dian papoose.     He  is  nothing  but  an  everlasting 
baby. 

MORAL  STATISTICS. 

I   WOULD  to  God  that  there  were  moral  as 
there  are  physical  statistics.     If  there  were, 
it  would  be  shown  that  integrity  and  permanent 
prosperity  go  together. 

HOW  MEN  UNFOLD. 

MEN  unfold  according  to  their  nature.  A 
man  of  phlegmatic  temperament  eats 
slowly,  drinks,  walks,  works,  sleeps  slowly;  and 
his  graces  will  grow  slowly.  If  a  man  be  quick 
and  nervous,  the  analogy  will  run  in  religion  as 
in  everything  else.  But  the  principle  is,  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  ripe  kernel  in  the 


INDIFFERENCE. 

INDIFFERENCE  is  more  fatal  than  skepti- 
1  cism.  There  is  no  pulse  in  indifference. 
Skepticism  may  have  warm  blood;  but  simple 
indifference  is  dead,  and  therefore  fatal. 

GENIUS  IMMORTAL. 

/^ENIUS  is  immortal.  Like  stars,  it  is  not 
\J  darkened  by  use,  nor  extinguished  by  time. 
The  stars  which  shone  over  Eden  hang  over  our 
dwellings  yet;  and  the  works  of  genius,  as  far 
back  as  there  is  any  record  of  them,  are  just  as 
fresh  and  just  as  bright  at  this  time  as  they  were 
at  the  beginning. 

147 


VALUE  OF  STOCK. 

I      SUPPOSE  there  is  a  great  deal  in  stock.    I 
suppose  that   some   men   are   born   honest 
men.     You  would  have  to  begin  and  untwist  the 
skein  to  the  original  tow  before  you  could  weak- 
en their  honesty. 

SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT. 

NO  one  can  take  the  Sermon   on   the  Mount 
and  apply  it  to  his  daily  life  and  not  find 
that  he  is  in  an  academy  which  drills  him  on  the 
right  and  on  the  left,   and  whets  and  sharpens 
him. 

THE  GOLDEN  GATE  OF  DEATH. 

WHEN  we  comprehend  the  fullness  of  what 
death  will  do  for  us,  in  outlook  and  fore- 
look,  dying  is  triumphing.  Nowhere  is  there  so 
fair  a  sight,  so  sweet  a  prospect,  as  when  a  young 
soul  is  passing  away  out  of  life  and  time  through 
the  gate  of  death, — the  rosy,  the  royal,  the  gold- 
en, the  pearly  gate  of  death. 

BRINGING  UP  BY  HEART. 

A  MOTHER   and   a   dog   are   the  only  two 
things  in  the  world  that  seem  to  have  ab- 
solutely disinterested  love. 

A  mother's  heart  does  more  in  the  bringing 
up  of  children,  a  million  times,  than  a  mother's 
hand,  though  the  hand  is  sometimes  quite  busy. 

EXPRESSED  AFFECTION. 

I  think  love  grows  between  husband  and  wife 
by  expression  of  affection.  I  know  there  is  a 
stately  dignity  in  vogue.  Husband  and  wife  sit 
over  against  each  other  like  those  great  statues 
of  Memnon  in  Egypt;  there  they  are,  vast,  stony 
and  hard. 

148 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN— a  name  spoken  in 
£\  every  corner  of  Christendom  and  added  to 
the  roll  of  those  upon  whom  Time  has  no  power. 

REMARKS  ABOUT  PUBLIC  MEN. 

ROBERT  BURNS— A  true  poet,  made  not 
by  the  schools,  brought  up  with  no  exter- 
nal culture  or  assistance.  He  came  as  a  flower 
comes  in  spring.  We  say  that  he  was  a  man  of 
the  people.  No;  he  was  far  above  the  people. 
He  was  ordained  to  be  an  interpreter  of  God  to 
his  kind,  then  and  forevermore. 

Of  all  the  American  novelists  who  have  passed 
away,  the  author  of  "  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables"  seems  to  be  the  greatest. 

Grant  had  the  patience  of  Fate  and  the  force 
of  Thor.  He  has  left  to  memory  only  such 
weaknesses  as  connect  him  with  humanity  and 
such  virtues  as  will  rank  him  among  heroes. 

John  Brown's  name  will  travel  through  the 
ages  as  an  illustrious  example  of  what  a  man  may 
do  who  is  willing  to  suffer  for  a  great  principle. 

Emerson,  the  calm,  the  observational,  not  an 
enthusiast  in  religion,  but  with  patriotism  and 
humanity  to  make  him  a  brave  witness.  It  took 
seven  generations  of  ministers  to  make  one  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson. 

It  is  a  noble  thing  to  see  a  man  so  in  sympathy 
with  his  time  and  work,  as  Tennyson  is,  that 
even  with  expiring  strength  he  still  tries  to  chant 
the  truth  of  God  to  the  age  in  which  he  lives. 

Peter  Cooper — a  manly  man,  who  lived  for 
his  fellow-men.  May  God  increase  the  proces- 
sion of  such  men  !  He  will  increase  it.  It  is  a 
tendency. 

Though  slow,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  sure.     A 

149 


thousand  men  could  not  make  him  plant  his  foot 
before  he  was  ready ;  ten  thousand  could  not 
move  it  after  he  had  set  it  down. 

HOW  TO  KEEP  SUNDAY, 

THE  object  of  Sunday  is  to  say  to  that  in  men 
which  is  secular  and  animal,  "Rest ;"  and 
to  that  which  is  intellectual,  moral  and  social, 
"Grow  !"  The  prevalent  idea  of  keeping  the 
Sabbath  is  that  it  is  a  day  on  which  certain 
things  must  not  be  done.  To  the  majority  of 
people,  Sunday  is  a  day  full  of  nots.  The  week 
is  a  house,  and  Sunday  is  the  best  room  in  it, 
and  should  have  the  best  things  put  into  it. 

Sunday  is  not  a  day  designed  to  enable  the 
church  to  get  a  hitch  on  folks.  It  is  the  com- 
mon people's  great  liberty-day,  and  they  are 
bound  to  see  that  work  does  not  come  into  it. 
I  esteem  the  awfulness  that  is  attached  to  Sun- 
day, and  church,  and  pulpit,  the  greatest  mis- 
take of  Christendom.  Sunday  is  the  common 
people's  Magna  Charta. 

INDUSTRY  AND  HAPPINESS. 

THE  poor  man  with  industry  is  happier  than 
the  rich  man  in  idleness.     The  slave  is  often 
happier  than  the  master,  who  is  nearer  undone 
by  license  than  his  vassal  by  toil. 

LOOK  AT  THE  FUTURE. 


TAKE   somebody  who  is  rather  faulty,  who 
you    think    is   a   slippery    Christian,    and 
whom  you  like  to   dissect,  and   remember  that 


the  work  of  grace  has  begun  in  him,  and  lift  him 
up,  and  imagine  what  he  will  be  in  the  future, 
till  you  see  him  enveloped  in  a  flood  of  God's 
glory,  and  then  look  at  him. 

150 


NOT  IN  STRAIGHT  LINES. 

THE  world  has   never   advanced   in    straight 
lines,  but  by  spiral — going  back  on  itself 
as  it  were,  but  still  advancing  on  the  whole. 

GOD'S  KINGDOM. 

ALL  those  who  have  their  nobler  nature  devel- 
oped until  they  feel  in  themselves  the  in- 
spiration of  God's  presence,  are  inhabitants  of 
His  kingdom  and  none  others  are. 

CRADLE   AND   THRONE. 

THE  power  of  the  cradle  is   greater  than  the 
power  of  the  throne.     Make  me  the  mon- 
arch of  the  cradles,  and  I  will  give  to  whomso- 
ever will  the  monarchy  of  kingdoms. 

CONCERT   PITCH. 

DID  you  ever  hear  how  the  string  of  a  harp 
or  a  violin  complains  when  you  begin  to 
turn  the  key,  and  screw  up  to  concert  pitch? 
How  it  wails  !  And  yet  when  it  is  screwed 
tight,  it  discourses  glorious  music — and  only 
then.  Men  do  not  liked  to  be  screwed  up,  but 
they  all  want  good  music  brought  out  of  them. 
God  knows  better  than  they  do  what  conditions 
are  required  for  such  music,  and  he  turns  the  key 
of  life,  and  brings  them,  at  last,  into  concord; 
but  it  is  late  before  many  of  them  are  fit  to  be 
played  upon. 

REPENTANCE. 

WHAT  repentance  is  ever  logical  ?     Will  a 
shepherd  refuse  a  returned  sheep  because 
it  followed  home  a  bell-wether   instead   of   the 
shepherd's  own  call?" 

151 


ORATORS  AMD  FARMERS. 


INHERE  are  more  passable  orators  born  every 
year  than  they  are  first-class  farmers.     If 
any  one  doubts  the  truth  of  this,  let  him  try   a 
farm  for  a  few  years. 

BORROWING  TROUBLE. 

I  THINK  the  most  humiliating  thing  a  per- 
son could  do  —  but  our  vanity  will  not  let  us 
do  it  —  would  be  to  sit  down  and  think  how  he 
has  fretted  and  stewed  and  simmered  in  advance, 
about  griefs  and  troubles  which  never  came  as 
he  anticipated  they  would. 

CLEAR  HEADS. 

I      HAVE  noticed  that  God's  providence  is  on 
the  side  of  clear  heads. 

CITIZENSHIP. 

THE  men  who  cannot  be  made  to  be  citizens 
have  not  the  rights  of  citizens.     Rights  de- 
velop with  the  advance  of  moral  excellence. 

ESCAPING  TROUBLE. 

rPHERE  are  many  men  that  will  not  get  away 
1  from  trouble  when  they  can.  If  there  is 
trouble  in  one  room  they  will  not  so  much  as  go 
into  another  room  to  avoid  it.  A  wise  man,  when 
he  finds  himself  in  a  room  where  there  is  trouble, 
goes  out  of  it  as  soon  as  possible.  Now  God  put  at 
least  thirty  rooms  in  a  man's  mind,  and  if  there 
is  trouble  in  one,  he  can  go  up  to  the  next  one, 
and  if  the  trouble  comes  into  that,  he  can  go  up 
to  the  next,  and,  if  necessary,  he  can  keep  going 
up-stairs  till  he  gets  upon  the  roof;  and  the 
higher  he  goes,  the  more  tired  will  troubles  get 
of  flying  up  after  him. 

152 


IMAGINATION. 

BY  the  light  of  imagination  the  noblest  genius- 
es, with  the  purest  of  lives  are  representing 
something  vastly  above  any  average  of  human 
experience. 

A  SHADOW. 

I  WOULD  rather  be  a  nobody,  and  have  no 
character  and  no  responsibility,  than  to  be 
one  of  those  miserable,  truckling  men  in  God's 
service,  who  forever  are  watching  their  influence, 
for  fear  they  shall  lose  it.  Suppose  you  should 
see  a  man  going  up  and  down  some  street,  and 
you  should  ask  him  why  he  did  it,  and  he  should 
say:  "  God  has  committed  to  me  the  responsi- 
bility of  a  shadow,  and  I  am  taking  care  that  I 
do  not  lose  my  shadow  !  " 

WEALTH,  A  PUNCTUATION. 

IT  is  a  pity  to  see  a  great  dwelling  in    which 
everything  appenrs  to  dwarf  the  occupant — 
in  which  the  occupant  is  but  the  punctuation  of 
his  wealth. 

AUTUMN. 

AS  in  Spring  all  things  are  coming,  so  in  Au- 
tumn all  things  are  going;  but  not  to  an- 
nihilation.    They   will  rest,  but   they  will   rise 
again. 

THE  GLOBE  A  CRADLE. 

I    THINK  that  the  whole  round  globe  is  but 
a  cradle,  and  that  God  rocks  it  with  His  foot. 

REMEMBERING  THE  PAST. 

EVER  remember  the  past    to    renew   your 
grief-  but  only  to  renew  your  courage. 

153 


N 


CONVERSION. 

/CONVERSION  is  to  a  man's  soul  just  what 
V_y  ripening  is  to  grapes.  They  hang  in  the 
right  form;  every  one  of  them  has  skin  and 
seeds;  but  all  of  them  are  sour.  But  just  let 
them  hang  there  long  enough  in  the  bright  sun- 
shine till  it  makes  them  sweet,  and  they  are  con- 
verted. That  is  exactly  what  conversion  means 
to  man.  He  hangs  there,  but  sour,  until  he  sees 
what  is  the  power  of  God,  the  love  of  God  and 
the  spirit  of  God  becomes  sweetened  to  him. 

PRAYER. 

IT  is  the  soul  that  prays  first;  the  tongue  wags 
afterwards.     It  is  no  small  privilege  that  we 
have  of  talking   with   God  and   of   laying   our 
troubles  upon  Him. 

LYING. 

I  DO  not  think  there  is  a  thing  about  which 
men  sin  more  than  they  do  in  this  matter  of 
lying.  They  lie  from  their  birth.  From  the 
womb  they  go  spreading  lies.  David  said,  in 
his  haste,  that  all  men  were  liars;  and  an  old 
Scotch  preacher  very  shrewdly  remarked  that 
he  never  took  it  back  when  he  got  leisure. 

APPLES  WITH  THE  PEEL  ON. 


are  some  persons  that  love  apples, 
X       who  cannot  bear  to  eat  them  with  the  peel 
on;  and  there  are  a  great   many  Christians  that 
love  to  engage  in  religious  devotions  who  cannot 
bear  go  to  a  prayer  meeting. 

GOD'S  WORK  IN  NATURE. 

EN   cannot  do  anything  in  marble,  or  on 
canvas,  and   not    have  their  name   pro- 

154 


M 


notinced  for  two  hundred  years  by  the  shadow 
of  what  they  have  done,  so  that  the  world  knows 
them  by  associating  them  with  their  works.  But 
God,  for  six  thousand  years,  has  carved  and 
painted  as  no  man  ever  carved  and  painted  and 
we  continually  behold  His  works,  and  who  says, 
"  God  ? "  Morning,  and  noon,  and  evening 
come  and  go,  and  how  many  of  us  say,  "  God? " 
All  the  day  long  the  sun  pours  down  its  life- 
giving  rays,  and  we  think  of  nothing  but  "  Um- 
brella," or  "  Harvest,"  or  something  of  that 
sort. 

HEIRS  OF  GOD. 

GOD  says,  "Iwill  give  you  if  you  ask,  myself  and 
all  that  I  have,  and  make  you  my  heirs;"  and 
when  a  man  is  an  heir  of  God,  there  is  a  good 
property  coming  to  him. 

POETRY. 

THE   finest  gossamer  thread  that  poetry  ever 
spun  has  utility  as  really  as   the  threads 
which  the  loom   weaves   into   cloth  for  bodily 
wear,  and  in  a  far  finer  and  nobler  sense. 

AMUSING  SINS. 

IT    makes  a  great  difference  whether  a  sin  is 
amusing  or  not  about   its   being  tolerated 
— laughable   lies    and    wickednesses    go    along 
smoothly,  when  everybody  kicks  the  sober  ohes. 

A  MISER'S  MAXIM. 

MERCY   and    sympathy  are   vagrant    fowls; 
and  that  they  may  not  scale  the  fence  be- 
tween a  man  and  his  neighbor,  their  wings  are 
clipped  by  the  miser's   master-maxim,  "  Charity 
begins  at  home" 

155 


TOAD  MEN. 

fpEOLOGISTS  sometimes  find  toads  sealed  up 
A  in  rocks.  They  crept  in  during  the  forma- 
tion periods,  and  deposits  closed  the  orifice 
through  which  they  entered.  There  they  re- 
main, in  long  darkness  and  toad  stupidity,  till 
some  chance  blast  or  stroke  sets  them  free.  And 
there  are  many  rich  men  sealed  up  in 
mountains  of  gold  the  same  way.  If,  in  the  midst 
of  some  convulsion  in  the  community,  one  of 
these  mountains  is  overturned,  something  crawls 
out  into  life  which  is  called  a  man. 

GOD'S  HIGHWAY. 

WE  know  what  direction  in  which  we  are  to 
grow,  and  what  are  the  materials  out  of 
which  our  growth  must  come.  "Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  mind  and 
soul,  and  strength,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
Here  is  God's  highway.  We  have  got  on  the 
turnpike  road. 

THE  FNGINE  OF  SYMPATHY. 

YOU  that  are  strong  are  to  help  that  man  who 
cannot  control  his  temper;  his  skin  and 
your  skin  may  be  different;  it  may  be  that  you 
are  made  tough,  while  he  is  made  very  tender. 
If  he  does  not  know  how  to  hold  himself,  do  you 
help  him  to  hold  himself;  if  he  cannot  extinguish 
the  conflagration  that  tends  to  break  out,  do  you 
bring  the  engine  of  your  sympathy  and  help  him 
to  put  out  the  fire. 

TRYING  ON  THE  SERMON. 

IT  will  not  be  long  after  you  return  to  your  own 
household  before  something  will  go  wrong, 
and  you  will  get  hold  of  the  wrong  handle.    Then 

156 


will  be  your  time  to  say,  *'  Let  me  try  on  the 
sermon."  Do  try  it  on.  Try  it  a  month — that 
is  not  long  to  wear  a  garment — and  see  if  it  is 
not  the  truth  that  I  have  been  telling  you. 

IT  STICKS  TO  HIM. 

I  AM  often  in  a  strait,  betwixt  two.  I  do  be- 
lieve in  conversion,  and  in  the  power  of 
new  spiritual  life;  but  after,  all,  my*  own  obser- 
vation has  gone  to  show  that  a  naturally  mean 
man  is  apt  to  have  his  meanness  stick  to  him  after 
he  becomes  a  professor  of  religion. 

FRENCH  LITERATURE. 

I  THINK  the  ten  plagues  of  Egypt  one  after 
another,  frogs,  lice  and  all,  would  not  be 
worse,  than  is  that  plague,  that  intolerable  nuis- 
ance of  French  literature.  I  had  rather  my 
child  (and  I  speak  the  words  of  truth  and  so- 
berness) would  take  his  chance  in  making  a 
journey  through  pest  hospitals,  plague  hospitals, 
yellow  fever  hospitals,  five  or  six  of  them  in  suc- 
cession, than  to  walkthrough  those  pest  volumes 
of  even  one  writer — Eugene  Sue. 

PERSONAL  INFLUENCE. 

YOU  are  not  doing  half  so  much  as  you  ought 
to  be  doing;  you  are   doing    a    thousand 
times  more  than  you  dream  of. 

SOUL  FEEDING. 

THE  mother  is  not  more  admirably  formed 
to  nourish  the  infant  body  by  her  own, 
than  to  nourish  its  heart  by  her  heart.  Its 
soul  feeds  at  her  heart,  as  much  as  its  body 
at  her  bosom,  and  with  this  difference,  that  the 
child  is  never  weaned  from  its  soul-breast. 

157 


PROPHECIES. 

pROPHECIES,  as  I  understand  them,  are 
J[  things  of  the  vaguest  and  most  general 
character  possible.  They  are  what  music  is  to 
an  army  while  marching.  When  Napoleon  was 
going  over  the  Alps,  and  his  soldiers  had  become 
nearly  exhausted  with  dragging  the  heavy  artil- 
lery after  them,  he  ordered  his  band  to  sound  a 
charge,  and  rhe  moment  the  soldiers  heard  that 
charge,  they  were  indued  with  double  strength, 
and  they  pitched  up  the  heights  with  comparative 
ease. 

LEAN  RELIGION. 

RELIGION  is  a  very  slim,  lean,  gaunt,  poor, 
ill-fed  thing  as  it  is  ordinarily  conceived 
of  in  this  world. 

WORKING  UP  TROUBLE. 

WORK  your  troubles  up!     If  a  man  fills  my 
house   with  thorns,  I  will    not  go  about 
saying,    "  What   a   distressed   state  of  things  is 
this!  "     They  are  good  to  make  the  pot  boil,  if 
for  nothing  else. 

SLEAZY  MEN. 

THERE  are  some  men  that  are  born  so  sleazy 
that  it  seems  as  though  no  sewing  would 
make  them  into  garments  of  any  account. 

NOT  BUILT  ALIKE. 

SHALL  I  despise  your  yacht  because  it  is  not 
built  like  mine?     Yet  people  insist  that  in 
theology  we  shall  be  built  as  much  alike  as  the 
Newfoundland  fishermen  are — and  as  much  in 
the  fog,  too! 

158 


BEST  APPLES  ON  TOP. 

WE  are  apt  to  carry  ourselves  as  men  arrange 
their  stores.  The  newest  and  most  at- 
tractive goods  are  in  the  windows;  but  those 
which  are  old,  or  shop-worn,  or  rotton,  or  adul- 
terated, are  taken  far  back  in  the  half-lights, 
where  sharp-eyed  clerks  sell  to  bat-eyed  cus- 
tomers. 

j» 

BOOKS. 

THANK   God   for  books!       And  yet    thank 
God  that  the  great  realm  of  truth  lies  yet 
outside  of   books,  too  vast  to  be  mastered  by 
types  or  imprisoned  in  libraries. 

NATURAL  LAWS. 

NATURAL  laws  are  like  our  post-offices,  only 
they  never  advertise.     If  any  man  has  a 
letter  there,  he  can  get  it  by  asking. 

JONATHAN  EDWARDS. 

WHEN  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  brightest 
lamp  of  centuries  on  these  shores,  stood 
forth,  ten  thousand  bats  flew  round  him,  and 
myriads  of  moths  and  millers  tried  to  put  out 
his  light,  and  he  was  regarded  as  a  great  inno- 
vator; but  in  our  time  there  is  no  lack  of  men 
who  worship  Jonathan  Edwards.  And,  strange 
to  say,  the  very  men  who  worship  these  bright 
examples  of  Christian  heroism,  take  their  old* 
bones,  as  Samson  took  the  jaw  bone  of  an  ass, 
and  stand  in  the  way  of  the  truths  which  they 
sought  to  establish. 

CONSCIENCE  OUT  OF  TUNE. 

SOME  men  keep  their  goodness  as  people  do 
their  pianos.     They   have   them   shut   up, 

159 


most  of  the  time,  at  one  side  of  the  parlor;  and 
when  they  have  looked  after  the  affairs  of  the 
kitchen,  and  taken  their  meals,  and  waited  upon 
their  company,  and  attended  to  all  their  other 
duties,  then,  for  relaxation,  they  open  them,  and 
play  a  few  tunes  upon  them.  Some  men  keep 
their  conscience  shut  up  a  good  part  of  the  time, 
and  once  in  awhile,  for  a  change,  they  open  it, 
and  play  upon  it.  They  find  it  a  little  out  of 
tune,  but  they  do  not  mind  that. 

A  VEGETABLE  SOUL. 

WE  love  to  fancy  that  a  flower  is  the  point 
of  transition  at  which  a   material  thing 
touches  the  immaterial.     It  is  the  sentient  vege- 
table soul. 

STRONG  REGIMENTS. 

IT  was  a  remarkable  saying  for  one  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary heroes — when  Congress,  instead  of 
passing  a  bill  for  more  soldiers,  recommended  a 
day  for  fasting  and  prayer — that  there  might  be  a 
good  deal  in  fasting  and  prayer,  but  he  had 
noticed  that  God's  providence  was  on  the  side 
of  strong  regiments. 

CRACKED  BELLS. 

YOU  would  think  to  look  at  that  bell  up  in 
the  belfry,  "  Oh,  such  a  bell,  lifted  up  so 
high,  it  only  needs  that  some  one  should  pull 
the  rope  to  make  it  sound  gloriously  through  the 
air!"  Well,  pull  the  rope;  it  sounds  for  all  the 
world  like  a  tin  pan!  It  is  cracked.  I  see  men 
in  the  old  belfry  of  prosperity;  and  other  men 
are  looking  up  at  them  and  saying,  "Oh,  how 
happy  they  must  be!  "  Well,  ring  them,  and  see 
how  they  sound. 

160 


GOD'S  FLOWER  BED. 

GOD'S  flower-bed  is  oftentimes  your  sick  bed. 
Joy,  patience,  and  faith  that  looks  beyond 
the  visible,  are  better  than  any  outward  achieve- 
ment. 

GOD'S  PROVIDENCE. 

I  DO  not  need  a  God,  whose  business  it  is  to 
rub  up  the  stars  and  keep  them  bright,  to 
turn  the  vast  wheel  of  the  universe,  and  by  in- 
finite forces  to  take  care  of  globes  and  human 
beings,  but  a  God  who  tells  me,  "The  hairs  of 
your  head  are  all  numbered,"  and  who  says, 
"  Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  my 
notice." 

GROWLERS. 

I   OFTEN  see  men  who  seem  to  think  that  it 
is  a  very  great  thing  to  squeak  at  every  joint, 
and  that  every  revolution  of  business   should  be 
accompanied  with  groans. 

APPREHENSION. 

TO    the  blind   man   the  whole    world  is   ob- 
literated.    To  the   deaf  man   there  is  no 
sound  in  the  air  by  day  or  by  night.     All  things 
are  dead  where  there  is  no  spiritual   apprehen- 
sion. 

HASTY  JUDGMENT. 

WITH  many  men  the  question  is  not  whether 
they  can  be  overcome,  but  at  what  pres- 
sure they  can  be  overcome.  All  pieces  of  tim- 
ber may  be  broken.  -Some  will  bear  a  ton,  some 
ten  tons,  some  a  hundred  tons,  and  some  a  thou- 
sand tons,  but  there  is  a  point  at  which  the 
strongest  piece  of  timber  will  break.  And  we 

161 


must  not  be  in  a  hurry,  when  a  man  falls,  to  say, 
"  That  man  was  a  corrupt  old  hypocrite." 

ELECTION. 

DO  I  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  election?    Cer- 
tainly.      I    believe    that    some    men    are 
elected  to  be  mathematicians,  and  some  I  know 
are  not. 

NEEDLESS  PRAYERS. 

WH  AT  do  angels  do  with  unnecessary  anxie- 
ties ?     What  clouds   of   needless   prayers 
are  d  lily  floated  upward  which  never  distill  into 
rain  ! 

EYE  PICTURES. 

k  \\  EN'S  eyes  make  finer  pictures  when  they 
IVl     know  how  to  use  them,  than  anybody's 
hands  can." 

ASPIRATION. 

THE   very  willingness  of  men  to  try  new  views 
of  new  ways  springs  from  the   developed 
desire  for  the  renovation  of  human  nature. 

CHILDREN  LIKE  ANIMALS. 

/CHILDREN  at  first  are  mere  animals.  The 
V_^  most  absolute  animals  on  the  globe,  I  think 
are  these  little  pulpy  children.  They  are,  as 
they  roll  about,  like  sunfish  floating  through  the 
water — round,  plump,  and  beautiful  to  look  at, 
but  good  for  nothing — absolutely  nothing.  1 
will  not  say  they  are  at  zero — they  are  below 
zero.  They  seem  to  be  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween nothing  and  something,  and  very  faintly 
revealed  at  that. 

103 


SELF-INCLOSURE. 

WK  are  not  obliged  to  sit  in  our  minds  with 
all  the  doors  open,  nor  with  all  the  win- 
dows open.     We  have  a  right  cf  reserve,  of  self- 
inclosure,  of  refusing  to  let  men  know  what  AVC 
are,  what  we  think,  and  what  we  do. 

WEALTH  AND  MANHOOD. 

I      SAY  that  that  idea  of  manhood  which  makes 
one  man  high  because  he  is  pocket-ful,  and 
another  man  low  because  he  is  pocket-empty,   is 
heathenish,  and  unworthy  of  men  who  have  lived 
any  length  of  time  within  sight  of  a  Bible. 

TO-DAY'S  DUTY. 

NOW  God  says  ''Here  is  your  duty  for  to-day, 
and  the  means  with  which  to  do  it.  To- 
morrow you  will  find  remittances  and  further  di- 
rections; next  week  you  will  find  other  remit- 
tances and  other  directions  ;  next  month  you 
will  find  others;  and  next  year  still  others." 

PUBLIC  SENTIMKNT. 

COULD  the  public  sentiment  declare  that  per- 
sonal morality  is  the  first  element  of  patriot- 
i-.ni,  that  corrupt  legislators  are  the  most  per- 
nicious of  criminals,  that  the  judge  who  lets  the 
villain  off  is  the  villain's  patron,  that  tolerance 
of  crime  is  intolerance  of  virtue,  our  nation 
might  defy  all  enemies  and  live  forever. 

TRASHY  RELIGION. 

THINK  that  of  all  the  trashy  things  in  this 
world,  the  most  trashy  are  a  religion  that 
don't  do  anything,  and  flowery  sermons,  and 
gingerbread  books,  that  begin  in  the  mouth  and 
end  in  the  ear. 

163 


I 


HOW  TO  VOTE. 

NO  man  has  a  right  to  go.  to  the  polls  who 
does  not  go  with  the  determination  to  have 
his  own  way  if  he  can,  and  to  let  other  people 
have  theirs  if  he  cannot,  and  to  accept  the  situa- 
tion when  it  has  been  fairly  decided  by  the  bal- 
lot. 


YOU  cannot  give  liberty  of  thought  and  action 
to    men   without  producing  beneficent  re- 
suits.     Its  product  has  been  the   same  wherever 
it  has  been  enjoyed. 

LIKE  A  MUSKET. 

EN  come  at  last  to  that  state  in  which  wrong- 
doing is  like  one  of  Queen  Anne's  muskets, 
that  kills  at  the  muzzle  and  kicks  at  the  breech. 

LESSONS  FROM    ROCKS. 

WHKNKYKR  you  see  a  man  laugh,  laugh 
with  him;  whenever  you  see  a  man  glad, 
you  be  glad,  too.  The  rocks  could  tell  you  that. 
Jf  one  of  a  joyous  company,  in  some  valley,  be- 
neath an  overhanging  cliff,  breaks  out  into  a 
merry,  ringing  laugh,  all  the  rocks  laugh  back 
again. 

VALUE  OF  MORAL  INFLUENCE. 

A  MAX  has  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  invest. 
Where  does  he  invest  it  ?  Does  he  take 
up  land  or  stocks  in  a  village  that  never  hears 
the  church  bell  ring  ?  No;  he  says,  "  If  I  should 
go  to  such  a  place,  my  property  would  never  in- 
crease ;  it  would  never  pay  any  dividend  ;  it 
would  be  a  dead  weight  on  my  hands."  A  man 
wishes  to  invest  his  money  where  there  are  the 

164 


most  active  men,  and  where  there  is  the  most 
moral  influence.  The  place  where  there  is  the 
most  true  Christianity,  is  the  place  to  invest 
money. 

WHAT  MEN  LACK. 

rT^HE  great  trouble  with  man  is  not  a  lack  of 
opportunity,  it  is  the  need  of  a  disposition 
to  improve  the  opportunities  they  have. 

FALSE  ACCUSATIONS. 

A  TEN-THOUSANDTH  part  of  the  things 
£\  alleged  against  a  man  that  are  alleged 
against  the  Eternal  Creator,  would  drive  him 
out  of  society. 

SINGING  VIRTUES. 

NO  man  has  a  right  to  put  himself  in  a  crystal 
case,    and   have   his  virtues   sing   to   him 
like  so  many  canary  birds. 

BURY  YOUR  SINS. 

DO  not  make  your  sins  like  an  Egyptian  mum- 
my, with  its  dried  bones  and  muscles 
wrapped  up  in  gummed  hideousness.  Let  your 
past  sins  be  buried,  and  if  you  want  to  goto  the 
graveyard  once  in  a  while  to  see  where  you  have 
laid  them,  go,  but  don't  bring  home  anything  with 
you. 

THE  SECRET  OF  LIFE. 

THIS,  then,  is  the  secret  of  life — to  seek  all 
you  can  lay  your  hand  on,  but  to  seek  it 
only  as  a  round  of  a  ladder  which  is  good  for 
nothing  for  a  man  to  sit  and  roost  on,  but  is 
good  to  enable  him  to  take  another  step  being 
only  preliminary  to  the  next. 

165 


APPETITES  NOT  SINFUL. 

THE  doctrine  of  sin  is  one  of  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  any  system  of  theology;  and 
that  doctrine  lies  very  near  to  a  high  state  of  re- 
generative religion;  but  the  form  and  color  de- 
rived from  that  form  of  teaching  which  came 
from  the  mediaeval  scholastic  theology  has  given 
to  sin  a  false  place,  and  to  its  philosophy  false- 
hood. We  are  emerging  from  the  pessimist  view 
of  the  mind  of  man,  and  of  the  nature  of  his 
passions,  of  his  appetites,  of  his  body,  and  are 
coming  to  believe  that  they  are  all  factors  that 
lead  to  sin,  but  that  they  are  not  in  and  of  them- 
selves sinful.  The  functions  of  the  earlier  peri- 
ods of  human  development  are  relatively  imper- 
fect, but  they  are  indispensable.  A  child  cannot 
grow  up  into  manhood  without  passing  through 
all  the  intermediary  stages.  You  cannot  break 
ground  with  a  bean,  and  at  the  same  instant  have 
it  fifteen  feet  high,  twining  around  a  pole,  and 
bearing  blossoms  and  pods,  h  must  go  up  by 
regular  stages,  little  by  little,  through  periods  of 
time,  and  under  the  ministration  of  moisture,  of 
heat,  and  of  light;  and  finally  it  comes  to  full 
growth.  So  it  is  the  decree  of  God  that  men 
shall  come  little  by  little  to  the  unfolding  of 
themselves. 

NOT  VET  RIPE. 

AFTER  I  have  blazed  out  on  a  man  I  can 
generally  get  up  and  regret  that  I  did  it, 
and  feel  sorry  for  him;  but  nature  is  very  strong, 
and  the  old  way  of  dealing  with  evil  right  in  the 
face,  blow  for  blow,  is  very  natural — too  natural 
altogether.  The  higher  way  is  that  by  which  we 
medicate  evil  through  compassion,  through  pa- 


tience,  through  gentleness,  through  self-sacrifice. 
The  using  of  one's  self  against  men  that  are  evil, 
not  to  harm  them,  but  to  reform  them,  and  to 
draw  them  to  a  better  and  a  higher  life — ah!  I 
would  to  God  that  I  were  a  better  example  to 
you  of  that.  I  would  to  God  that  you  would 
try  as  hard  as  I  do  to  have  that  example.  I 
have  learned  it  somewhat,  so  that  if  a  thing  does 
not  come  too  fast  and  too  hot  I  generally  refuse 
malign  feelings  toward  those  that  injure  me;  but 
I  confess  that  I  am  not  ripe  yet.  The  sour  juice 
has  not  yet  become  quite  saccharine  enough  in 
me.  Nevertheless,  I  do  not  exempt  myself  from 
duty,  and  I  judge  myself,  my  standing,  and  the 
truth  and  reality  of  the  Christian  religion  as  ex- 
emplified by  me,  and  not  by  my  knowledge,  and 
not  by  my  good-natured  hours,  not  by  the 
amount  of  enjoyment  which  I  take  in  the  aes- 
thetic exercise  of  worship,  and  not  by  conscience 
even,  but  by  the  power  that  I  have  of  meeting 
hatred  with  love,  and,  more  than  that,  of  serving, 
instead  of  punishing,  those  that  do  me  harm. 

HUNGER  FOR  FAME. 

OH,  that  we   could  remove  the  curse  of    the 
hunger  for  fame,  and  give  in  its  place  the 
substantial    hunger  for  real   excellence  without 
recognition  or  reward. 

PRIVATE  RIGHTS. 

THE  private  rights  of  a  public  man  should 
be  guarded  as  sacredly  as  the  altar  of  a 
temple.  If  the  President  of  the  United  States 
pursues  an  inhuman  course  towards  the  Indian; 
if  he  transgress  the  canons  of  liberty  which  he 
is,  sworn  to  defend;  if  he  wink  at  evils  which  he 

167 


is  bound  to  prevent  or  suppress,  he  deserves  se- 
vere public  rebuke.  But  in  his  own  private 
home,  whether  he  manages  his  individual  affairs 
with  economy  or  stinginess,  whether  he  drinks 
whiskey  at  his  table,  or  nothing  but  cold  water, 
whether  he  dresses  well  or  ill,  talks  much  or 
little,  spends  his  income  in  one  way  or  another 
— these  and  all  such-like  things  do  not  belong  to 
him  as  President,  but  as  a  private  man,  and  are 
sacred  from  remark.  For  good  morals  every 
man  may  be  held  responsible.  There  ought  to 
be  but  one  key  to  a  man's  privacy,  and  that  is  in 
his  own  hands;  but  the  devil  has  given  every- 
body a  key  to  it,  and  everybody  goes  in  and  out 
and  filches  whatever  he  pleases. 

CHARGING  AGAINST  A  HEART. 

NOBODY  will  tell  you  some  things.  Even 
your  pastor  won't.  I  would  rather  any 
time  go  into  the  battle-field,  unskilled  as  I  am  in 
soldiery;  I  would  rather  cut  off  a  man's  leg, 
little  as  I  know  about  surgery,  and  then  take 
care  of  him,  than  to  tell  a  person  his  faults.  I 
think  to  charge  one  of  the  batteries  of  Sevasto- 
pol was  no  more  than  it  is  to  charge  right  up 
against  a  man's  heart. 

LOOKING  HEAVENWARD. 

YOU  have  probably  noticed  that  when  men 
walk  across  a  stream  on  a  timber,  if  they 
look  at  their  feet  to  see  where  they  step,  their 
head  begins  to  swim,  and  very  soon  they  have 
to  swim  or  drown;  whereas,  if  they  fix  their  eye 
upon  a  single  object  on  the  opposite  bank,  and 
never  look  at  their  feet  at  all,  they  reach  the 
other  side  in  safety.  Now,  if  a  man  stands  lookr 


ing  at  this  world,  he  gets  dizzy  and  intoxicated, 
and  falls;  whereas,  if  he  fixes  his  eye  upon  the 
bank  of  the  eternal  world,  he  walks  straighter  in 
this  world,  and  is  more  sure  of  reaching  the 
other  side  in  safety. 

PRETENDERS  TO  VIRTUE. 

I  HAVE  seen  the  heaviest  establishments  with 
the  simplest  sign  over  the  door,  while  a  petty 
huckster  filled  his  windows  with  about  every 
article  in  the  shop;  and  I  have  seen  persons  so 
violently  indignant  at  missteps  in  others,  that  I 
suspected  that  all  the  virtue  they  had  was  at  the 
window! 

ILLUSTRIOUS  MARTYRS. 

rPHERE  are  men  that  seem  to  think  they 
1  would  suffer  willingly  if  they  were  called 
to  suffer  as  martyrs,  illustriously.  Ah!  that  is 
just  the  thing.  You  would  be  willing  to  be 
placed  where  you  would  have  to  suffer,  and 
where  you  would  yet  get  the  credit  of  suffering. 
But  it  is  pinching  suffering  that  God  calls  you  to 
endure.  He  knows  where  your  weakness  re- 
quires that  you  should  suffer,  and  there  he  makes 
you  suffer.  Like  a  driver,  he  puts  the  stroke  of 
the  lash  in  those  very  places  where  he  knows  it 
will  make  you  wince. 

COMFORTERS. 

NOW,  many  men  have  the  office  of  comforters. 
It  ought  to  be  the  office  supremely  of  a 
physician.     No  man  is  fit  to  be  a  doctor  merely 
because  he  knows  medicine.     No  man  is  a  true 
doctor  or  physician,  though  he  may  be   a  true 

169 


surgeon,  who  does  not  understand  the  inter^r 
economy  of  a  man — his  dispositional  as  well  as 
his  physiological  life.  Structure  and  function 
are  not  all.  Men  say  that  the  reason  that 
homoeopathy  prevails  is,  that  they  who  practise 
it  play  on  the  imagination.  I  do  not  care  what 
they  play  on,  if  the  outcome  is  help.  I  do  care, 
too;  for  the  less  I  take  the  better  I  feel,  \\hat 
if  it  be  imagination?  What  if  a  man  has  such 
discernment  that  he  can  see  that  if  he  can  lift  up 
a  patient's  disposition,  and  therefore  lift  up  his 
relaxed  nerves,  it  will  brace  up  the  whole  person, 
and  says,  '*  I  will  make  him  cure  himself  ?  "  No- 
body outside  of  surgery  ever  does  cure  anybody; 
he  who  gets  well  always  gets  well  himself ;  and 
blessed  be  the  physician  that  knows  how,  whether 
by  medicine  or  by  his  own  personal  quality,  to 
persuade  men  to  get  well,  by  giving  nature  a 
chance  to  operate  and  lift  them  out  of  their  dis- 
mal condition. 

RELIGION  TRUE. 

f\H,  religion  is  true!  It  is  of  God.  It  leads 
\J  to  God."  All  the  outside  performances 
of  religion  may  be  invalid,  empty,  and  useless; 
but  wherever  the  heart  is  taken  possession  of  by 
this  divinest  spirit  of  gentleness,  sympathy,  com- 
passion, pity,  and  love,  it  reigns  on  the  dark 
earth  as  stars  on  the  dark  sky  of  the  night. 

TALE-BEARING. 

DOCTOR  might  as  well  stand  with  his 
saddle-bags  and  scatter  their  contents 
through  the  community  as  a  man  tell  all  he 
knows  about  people  indiscriminately. 

170 


A  WELL-BUILT  MAN. 

SOME  men  go  through  life  as  steamers  do 
through  the  sea,  beating  every  wave  with 
paddles  and  bows,  determined  to  domineer  over 
wind  and  storm.  But  it  must  be  a  well-built 
man  that  can  put  his  prow  into  life,  and  go  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  point  at  which  he  aims,  by 
means  of  his  own  sheer  sagacity  and  strength. 

SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION. 

WE  are  all  of  us  merely  developing  spirit  in 
matter  or  out  of  matter.  We  are  gaining 
that  victory  which  God  means  the  immortal  shall 
gain  over  the  mortal,  the  transient,  the  perish- 
ing. We  are  producing  from  these  roots,  these 
stems — our  bodies —  blossoms  and  fruits  which 
God  shall  be  willing  to  pick,  that  he  may  show 
them  again  in  another  life. 

OPPORTUNITY  IN  AMERICA. 

WE  grumble — \ve  inherit  that  from  our  an- 
cestors; we  often  mope  and  vex  ourselves 
with  melancholy  prognostications  concerning 
this  or  that  danger.  Some  men  are  born  to  see 
the  devil  of  melancholy;  they  would  see  him  sit- 
ting in  the  very  door  of  heaven,  methinks.  Not 
I;  for  though  there  be  mischiefs  and  troubles, 
yet  when  we  look  at  the  great  conditions  of  hu- 
man life  in  society,  and  they  have  been  aug- 
mented favorably,  they  never  were  so  favorable 
as  they  are  to-day.  More  than  that:  if  you  will 
look  at  the  diversity  of  the  industries  by  which 
men  ply  their  hands,  if  we  look  at  the  accumu- 
lating power  of  the  average  citizen,  you  will  find 
that  it  is  in  the  power  of  a  man  to  earn  more  in 

171 


a  single  ten  years  of  his  life  to-day  than  for  our 
ancestors  in  the  whole  of  their  life. 

AMERICA'S  VITALITY. 

THE  power  of  a  nation  is  to  be  judged  by  its 
resistance  to  disease.  All  nations  are  liable 
to  attack,  but  the  real  power  of  a  nation  is  shown 
in  its  ability  to  throw  off  disease.  The  power  of 
recovery  is  better  than  all  soundness  of  national 
constitution.  It  is  better  than  anything  else  can 
be.  America  has  arisen  from  a  fifth-rate  power; 
but  she  looks  calmly  and  modestly  over  the 
ocean,  and  is  a  first-rate  power  among  the  na- 
tions to-day.  She  was  a  democracy;  the  people 
made  their  own  laws;  they  levied  and  collected 
their  own  taxes;  and  it  was  said,  "Of  course 
they  will  not  allow  themselves  to  be  taxed  more 
than  they  want  to  be."  We  were  not  a  military 
people;  Europe  told  us  so.  Great  Britain  told 
us  so.  They  told  me  so  to  my  face;  and  I  said 
on  many  a  platform,  "  You  do  not  understand 
what  democratic  liberty  means.  Wait  till  this 
game  is  played  out,  and  see  what  the  issue  is." 
And  what  is  the  issue  of  the  game?  The  genius 
of  the  Northern  people  is  slow  to  get  on  fire, 
and  is  hard  to  put  out;  so  that  we  had  to  learn 
the  trade  of  war.  We  had  learned  every  trade 
of  peace  already,  but  when  once  we  had  learned 
the  trade  of  war,  the  power  of  the  North  was 
manifest,  to  the  honor  and  glory  of  our  religion, 
of  our  political  faiths,  and  of  the  whole  training 
of  our  past  history. 

ROBUST  MORALITY. 

FOR  myself,  I  know  of  but  one  refuge  (though 
to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure),  and  that  is 

172 


the  simple  morality  of  the  New  Testament — that 
simple-hearted,  robust  morality,  with  an  up-and- 
down  love  of  right,  and  an  up-and-down  hatred 
of  wrong. 

LIVING  IN  A  CELLAR. 

THK  man  who  trusts  in  God,  lives  in  the 
upper  story  of  his  head;  while  the  man 
who  does  not  trust  in  God.  lives  in  the  lower 
;-tory  of  his  head.  The  man  who  trusts  in  God, 
lives  in  an  observatory,  where  he  enjoys  the  sun- 
light and  the  pure  atmosphere  of  heaven;  while 
the  man  who  does  not  trust  in  God,  lives  down 
in  a  dank  and  dungeon  cellar. 

EXCUSES  FOR  LAZINESS. 

rPHERE  are  educated  men  in  this  congrega- 
1  tion  that  have  no  business  to  be  unoccu- 
pied on  Sunday.  I  know  what  the  excesses  of 
labor  are;  I  know  how  hard  the  city  grinds;  I 
know  that  there  are  some  men  that  cannot  do 
this  work;  but  I  know  that  for  all  of  the  thou- 
sands who  resort  here  Sunday  night  and  morning 
there  cannot  be  that  excuse.  There  are  men 
who  are  like  trunks  packed  in  a  garret — wh<  se 
heads  are  never  opened  from  year  to  ytar. 
There  are  men  in  this  congregation  who  have 
the  capacity  of  inspiring  enterprise  in  the  young, 
but  who  are  too  selfish.  They  want  to  stay  at 
home,  or  take  a  ride  in  Central  Park.  They 
cannot  give  up  their  afternoon.  One  is  tc  o^ 
feeble,  one  has  too  much  domestic  care,  one  has 
had  his  turn  (was  once  -a  teacher),  and  so  forth. 
"I  pray  thee  have  me  excused."  They  all  want 
to  be  excused,  and  sit  down  on  the  cushion  of 
self-indulgence,  and  call  themselves  Christians. 

178 


THE  PRESENT  AGE. 

INHERE  was  never  a  time,  I  think,  in  which 
it  was  so  well  worth  a  man's  while  to  live. 
There  was  never  a  time  when  society  touched  a 
man  on  so  many  sides.  At  every  faculty  there 
is  some  hand  knocking  at  the  door  and  asking 
entrance.  There  never  was  a  time  when  com- 
mon people  could  know  as  much  of  history,  as 
much  of  science,  as  much  of  art,  as  much  of  ad- 
ministration. In  former  days  a  man  might  say, 
"  I  know  nothing  of  all  these  things;  how  can  I 
be  blamed?"  but  no  man  can  say  that  to-day. 

HUMOR. 

I  HAVE  noticed  in  great  assemblies  that  when 
men  get  by  the  ears,  and  their  combative 
feelings  have  arisen,  and  they  are  ready  for  a 
fierce  conflict,  one  good  stroke  of  humor  puts  it 
all  back,  and  the  men  smile,  and  look  at  each 
other  with  friendly  eyes.  I  tell  you,  humor  is 
the  friend  of  conscience;  and  any  man  whose 
conscience  does  not  want  humor  I  suspect  keeps 
worse  company  than  that  —  the  company  of  com- 
bativeness  and  destructiveness. 


APPRECIATING  GENIUSES. 

IT  may  be  said  that,  so  far  as  history  is  con- 
cerned, there  is  no  conception  of  God  finer 
than  that  developed  by  Moses  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. "How  is  that  for  evolution?"  you  will 
f>ay.  I  will  simply  reply,  that  when  Moses  lived 
mankind  had  been  living  for  a  million  years  on 
the  earth;  that  there  were  the  materials  for  the 
formation  of  an  idea  of  the  divine  Being;  that 
though  they  were  sparse,  relatively,  there  were  a 

174 


few  lines  of  light,  and  that  his  was  one  of  those 
appreciating  geniuses,  like  Shakespeare's,  which 
took  ten  thousand  things  that  had  been  living 
around  about,  and  did  not  invent  them,  but  felt 
them,  and  saw  them,  and  drew  them  into  the 
mightiness  of  his  own  soul,  so  that  they  became 
a  part  of  his  ocean  nature.  They  had  happened 
before,  and  many  of  them  were  insignificant  until 
he  made  them  stand  in  the  grandeur  of  his  aichi- 
tecture  and  the  beauty  of  his  fabric. 

A  TRANSITION  PERIOD. 

THE  transition  which  we  are  making  to-day 
is  out  of  the  mediaeval  and  monarchial 
construction  of  human  society  into  an  atmos- 
phere fashioned  not  so  much  by  considerations 
of  the  state  as  by  the  higher  disclosures  of  men's 
moral  lives,  by  the  sweetness  of  the  family,  by 
the  realm  of  philanthropy,  by  the  dawning  and 
practical  enforcing  of  the  idea  that  the  whole 
human  family  belong  to  each  other,  and  that  love 
should  be  radiant  among  men.  This  larger  con- 
ception of  God,  which  is  not  yet  really  fashioned 
and  formed  into  any  definite  theology,  is  strug- 
gling for  an  expression,  first  negatively,  by  knock- 
ing off  the  barbarisms  that  have  existed  hitherto; 
and  the  men  that  still  cling  to  antiquity  are 
shocked  at  the  idea. 

UNCONSCIOUS  DISTURBERS. 

NOW,  a  man  should  study  somewhat  his  own 
natural  carriage.  In  the  household  is  a^ 
man  grave,  slow,  without  any  blossoming?  He 
is  a  dullard;  he  is  an  ox;  yet  he  may  not  be  with- 
in. He  lives  with  one  that  has  flashing  nerves, 
and  is  as  quick  as  mercury;  and  against  that 

175 


man  he  is  prejudiced;  he  is  out  of  patience  with 
him.  Js  one  nervous?  Docs  lie  feel  quickly  and 
express  himself  quickly?  And  does  he  dwell 
with  others  that  also  are  sensitive?  The  very 
habit  of  speaking  abruptly  or  decisively  hurts, 
in  the  family,  and  elsewhere.  The  things  are 
unconscious,  and  all  the  more  because  the  man 
who  indulges  in  them  may  be  conscientious,  up- 
right, and  want  to  do  right.  As  when,  for  in- 
stance, a  great  weighty  Newfoundland  dog  rushes 
into  the  parlor,  treads  on  the  table  and  upsets 
the  children,  he  does  not  mean  anything  but 
caress,  so  there  are  men  that  overthrow  each 
other  with  rude  contacts  and  unconscious  vio- 
lence, disturbing  the  peace  and  harmony  of  all 
with  whom  they  have  to  do.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  room  for  people  to  study  themselves  in 
these  minor  directions;  for  a  man  may  be  just, 
a  truth-speaker,  and  a  conscientious  man,  and 
yet  be  perpetually  disturbing  the  balance  of 
things. 

THE  WORLD  IN  A  PANIC. 

IF  in  a  great  crowd  assembled  on  some  public 
occasion  there  should  spring  up  a  panic  of 
alarm,  and  forthwith  every  person  should  com- 
mence rushing,  dashing,  overthrowing  the  weak, 
and  treading  down  children,  the  whole  great 
throng  doing  mischief  upon  each  other,  it  would 
imperfectly  represent  what  is  going  on  all  over 
the  world.  There  is  not  a  house  where  there  are 
not  frictions.  There  is  not  a  neighborhood 
where  there  are  not  misunderstandings  I  had 
almost  said,  there  is  not  a  church  where  there 
are  not  quarrels.  From  the  very  fountain  of 
sanctity,  wedded  love,  from  that  little  imperial 
realm,  the  household,  the  empire  of  affection,  we 

176 


si  ill  hear  the  murmur,  the  outcry,  or  sometimes 
even  the  passionate  voice  of  discord;  and  if  you 
go  up  and  down  through  the  community  with 
moral  experience  and  well-adjusted  power  of 
analysis  and  judgment,  I  think  you  will  find,  not 
that  the  unhappiness  which  prevails  in  the  world 
comes  from  great  strokes  of  misfortune,  though 
there  are  many  of  these,  but  that  the  tone  of 
happiness  is  lowered,  and  the  actual  uprising  of 
unhappiness  is  caused  by  the  carriage  of  men 
among  themselves.  To  a  very  large  extent  it  is 
the  result  of  little  things. 

PARTIAL  VIEW  OF  GOD. 

WHEN  a  large  landscape  is  to  be  taken  by 
photography,  it  is  taken  in  sections,  and 
then,  when  struck  off,  they  are  put  together  on 
a  surface,  so  that  the  whole  can  be  drawn  out. 
No  instrument  is  large  enough  to  take  in  a  quad- 
rant. So  it  is  with  the  idea  of  God  in  any  one 
individual.  It  is  restrained  and  measured  by 
the  limitation  of  his  own  individuality.  Some 
men  that  have  immense  sympathy  and  benevo- 
lence see  nothing  but  goodness — goodness  not 
tempered  by  justice,  goodness  not  as  part  and 
parcel  of  a  great  administrator.  Some  men  that 
are  intensely  conscientious  and  stern  in  their 
sense  of  justice  form  an  idea  of  God  as  an  im- 
perial sovereign.  To  them  He  is,  first,  middle, 
and  last,  the  Sovereign.  The  doctrine  of  sover- 
eignty has  been  one  of  the  most  universal  over 
all  men  in  hard  times,  and  men  of  stern  nature 
have  clung  to  that  view  of  God  almost  to  the 
losing  sight  of  the  other  side;  whereas,  there  are 
many  men,  artists  in  nature,  to  whom  God  is 
manifested  more  through  the  channels  of  beauty 
than  through  all  other  channels.  If  you  could 

17? 


enter  in  and  see  as  they  see,  you  might  say: 
"  That  may  be  your  God,  but  1  never  had  such  a 
God  before."  It  is  so  from  the  immensity  of 
the  divine  Being,  and  from  the  fact  that  we  fash- 
ion the  conception  of  God.  For  the  conception 
is  all  that  we  have.  He  is  invisible,  incommuni- 
cable. "  No  man  shall  see  Him  and  live."  I 
had  almost  said  the  meaning  of  it  was  that  no 
man  shall  see  Him  until  he  is  dead.  "We  shall 
see  Him  as  He  is,"  breaks  out  in  another  place. 
''  Now,  we  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly,"  says 
another  of  the  interlocutors  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. God  is  so  large,  so  vast,  that  nobody  sees 
Him.  Not  only  that,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  any"  man  ever  has  a  comprehension  that 
takes  in  the  whole  cycle  and  circle  of  the  divine 
existence.  We  are  each  of  us  seeing  a  little. 

A  NOBLE  LIFE. 

A  LIFE  that  is  full  of  brightness;  a  life  that 
is  filled  with  sweetness;  a  life  that  moves 
as  flowers  move,  borne  in  your  hands,  carrying 
their  fragrance  with  them,  and  scattering  it 
everywhere;  a  life  patient,  gentle,  forgiving, 
knowing  no  evil,  thinking  none,  believing  in 
none,  seeking  all  that  is  good,  pure,  true,  and 
making  others  happy — oh,  what  a  life  is  that! 
and  if  that  life  pervaded  the  whole  community, 
how  blessed  would  be  that  community!  That  is 
the  life  that  you  are  called  to. 

SPIRITUAL  EDUCATION. 

PUT  a  violin  into  the  hands  of  a  young  prac- 
titioner (or,  for  the  whole  neighborhood, 
more  agreeable,   probably,  a  piano);  spread  be- 
fore him  the  Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  or 

178 


Schumann's  works.  The  question  is,  Ought  that 
child  to  play  these?  Certainly  he  ought;  it  is 
his  duty  to  do  it,  if  you  give  him  time  and  prac- 
tice enough.  Is  it  his  duty  to  do  it  to-day,  this 
moment?  No;  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  do  it 
to-day;  but  by  and  by,  with  suitable  influence 
exerted  upon  him,  and  with  patience  of  practice, 
he  will  come  to  them.  I  say  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  play  all  the  way  through  the  Fifth  Sym- 
phony, but  I  say  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  do  it 
until  he  studies  and  is  educated  to  do  it. 

That  which  is  true  of  these  more  familiar  in- 
stances is  true  of  the  whole  round  of  unfolding 
— that  is,  of  education;  for  spiritual  results  come 
from  education  as  much  as  these  lower  and  sec- 
ular forms  of  development. 

Now,  say  to  a  man  that  just  comes  into  a  con- 
scious purpose  of  living  a  Christ-like  life,  "You 
must  love  your  enemies.".  "Not  by  a  good  deal," 
he  says;  "T  tiied  it  yesterday,  and  I  could  not 
do  it;  everything  was  in  revolt  with  me."  So  it 
was,  and  yesterday  he  could  not  do  it.  Was  he 
therefore  released  from  the  duty  of  doing  it  ? 
No.  The  pressure  of  the  divine  ideal  was  still 
upon  him.  Those  words  have  never  been  re- 
voked They  echo  down  through  the  ages  to- 
day. They  come  to  us  before  we  have  learned, 
just  as  every  attainment  in  lower  education 
comes.  You  must  strive  and  attain  to  it. 

OBSCURE  HEROES. 

WHY  does  a  man  of  honor  tell  the  truth? 
Because  he  loves  the  truth;  because  any- 
thing less  is  unseemly  in  his  mind,  as  is  a  discord 
to  a  musician's  ear,  or  a  lack  of  harmony  in  color 
on  the  palette  to  the  painter's  eye.  In  the  sight 
of  Cod  deeds  arc  judged  by  their  moral  quality, 

179 


and  not  by  the  effects  which  they  are  producing 
upon  men,  nor  by  those  auxiliaries  by  which  you 
crutch  yourself  along  in  a  moral  course.  For 
example,  a  violent  passion  subdued  in  the  se- 
crecy of  one's  own  chambered  will,  stands  before 
God  for  heroism.  Jf  one  were  adapting  himself 
to  some  great  enterprise,  or  some  public  trust, 
or  conspicuous  place,  and  should  say,  "  1  have  a 
strong  temptation  for  intoxicating  drinks,  and  I 
must  kill  that  serpent;"  or,  al  am  parsimonious, 
and  that  will  be  against  my  opportunity,  and  so 
I  will  force  myself  to  give:  it  will  be  a  good  ex- 
penditure for  ambition;"  ipf  a  man,  in  other 
words,  contests  the  passions  of  IMS  nature  and 
his  character  for  some  exterior  reason,  for  some 
consideration  of  profit,  1  will  not  say  that  he 
should  not  do  it,  but  1  will  say  that  this  is  the 
very  poorest  kind  of  heroism — so  poor  that  it  is 
out  at  the  elbows.  If  a  man  has  a  lion-like  pas 
sion,  let  him,  as  David  did,  attack  the  lion;  let 
him,  as  the  great  heroesof  antiquity  did,  go  forth 
to  slay  the  python.  A  man's  mind  is  to  be  to- 
ward the  good,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  good  he- 
is  to  confess  the  evil.  Whether  any  man  knows 
it  or  not,  whether  it  will  make  any  difference  in 
the  market,  or  in  the  Court  of  Trumpets,  or  not, 
the  right  thing  is  to  be  done  for  its  own  sake. 
Do  you  say,  "Oh,  well,  that  is  fantastic,  that  is 
imaginary;  nobody  does  so!"  Perhaps  nobody 
does  with  whom  you  consort;  but  there  are  a 
good  many  in  this  world  that  do.  There  are 
more  obscure  heroes  than  visible  ones  in  this 
world. 


R 


REFORM. 

EFORM  is  (iod's  remedy  against  revolution. 
If  nations  will  accept    the   indications  of 

180 


God's  providence,  and  make  gradual  changes, 
they  will  grow  without  compressions  and  explo- 
sions; but  where  they  will  not,  and  hidden  forces 
are  perpetually  drawing  up  the  steam,  by  and  by 
they  will  have  a  worse  revolution  just  because 
they  will  not  let  off  the  steam  by  reformation. 
But  after  that,  what?  Better — a  great  deal  bet- 
ter. All  Europe  is  better  than  it  was  before  the 
French  Revolution.  That  was  an  awful  volcanic 
eruption;  the  ground  shook;  the  very  hills  spurt- 
ed lava;  but  though  it  looked  in  those  days  as  if 
the  end  had  come,  how  beautiful  now  it  is!  and 
how  far  advanced  democratic  France  to-day  is 
over  the  monarchial  France  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago!  We  cannot  foresee,  we  do  not 
know,  what  is  going  to  happen;  but  one  thing 
we  do  know,  that  God  reigns,  and  that  the  light 
of  intelligence,  of  literature,  has  been  so  far  dis- 
closed that  no  raven  wing  can  sweep  it  back 
again.  Once  let  the  sun  come  over  the  east, 
and  you  cannot  stop  it;  it  will  ride  triumphant 
through  the  whole  day,  shining  brighter  and 
brighter  to  the  end.  The  rising  light  of  knowl- 
edge, the  rising  light  of  true  religion,  the  rising 
light  of  liberty  and  regenerative  manhood,  has 
come,  it  has  come  to  stay;  and  the  whole  earth 
shall  see  the  salvation  of  our  God. 

WATER-LOGGED  SAINTS. 

IT  is  a  man  dying  with  his  harness  on  that 
angels  love  to  take.  I  hope  those  old  water- 
logged saints  that  died  soaking  in  damp  stone 
cells  were  taken  to  heaven.  They  had  hell 
enough  on  earth,  and  it  would  be  a  pity  for  them 
to  have  a  continuation  of  it  in  the  other  world; 
but  I  think  they  were  the  poorest  of  all  human 
commodities  ever  taken  in! 

181 


THE  WORLD'S  ADVANCE. 

THERE  was  not  a  house  in  all  Athens  that 
you  would  put  your  dog  into  and  call  it  a 
decent  kennel.  The  Athenians  lived  in  houses 
that  protected  them  from  the  sun  and  rain,  and 
that  was  all.  They  had  no  carpets,  no  costly 
furniture,  no  pictures,  no  embellishments.  Art 
was  consecrated  to  the  State  and  to  religion. 
In  Athens  there  were  no  newspapers,  no  maga- 
zines, no  libraries.  There  was  no  home  circle. 
The  wife  was  a  drudge  whose  only  duty  was  to 
take  care  of  slaves.  She  could  not  unveil  her 
face  in  the  presence  of  men,  nor  could  she  even 
come  to  the  door  to  greet  her  husband  or  her 
sons  when  they  came  back  from  battle.  Though 
the  lofty  mount  of  the  Acropolis  gleamed  with 
marble  temples,  the  sun  each  day  finding  and 
leaving  it  the  most  resplendent  point  on  the 
globe,  yet  at  the  bottom  it  was  villainously 
stenchful;  and  the  condition  of  its  inhabitants 
was  mean  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  poorest 
laborer  in  our  time. 

NEED  OF  RULES. 

MEN  need  rules  before  they  have  principles; 
but   rules  should  lead  to  principles;  and 
principles  to  intuition. 

THKY   DESERVE  PITY. 

WHEN  I  find  persons  with  nothing  to  do  in 
life,  persons  who  are  educated,  of  great 
resources,  of  great  imagination,  of  great  affec- 
tion, great  thinking  powers,  very  active,  but 
nothing  to  do;  too  rich  to  be  obliged  to  work, 
and  placed  in  a  high  position  in  society- — (there 

182 


is  nothing  worse) — staying  at  home,  reading  a 
great  deal,  thinking  a  great  deal,  rolling  and 
rolling  over  feelings  a  great  deal — when  such 
persons  come  to  me.  my  first  thought  is,  God 
help  them!  If  the  Lord  in  His  good  providence 
would  only  send  some  dispensation  to  take  away 
their  property,  so  they  would  be  forced  to  work, 
so  they  would  have  to  go  out  to  work  as  the  ser- 
vant girls  do,  go  out  and  wash  for  a  living,  most 
of  them  would  be  very  happy  saints  before  they 
had  washed  a  year. 


A 


RIGHT  USE  OF  THE  WORLD. 

GREAT  many  men  are  addicted  to  much 
lugubrious  soliloquizing  and  complaining 
about  this  unsatisfying  world;  but  whether  it  is 
satisfying  or  not  depends  upon  what  men  try  to 
satisfy  themselves  with.  If  a  man  were  to  take 
a  watch  and  try  to  use  it  as  a  compass,  to  steer 
a  ship  by,  he  would  say:  "How  unsatisfying  this 
watch  is!  " 

THE  WORSE  THE  BETTER. 

NOW,  when  you  wish  to  please  God,  treat  Him 
as  one  who  feels  sorry  for  sinners;  treat 
Him  as  one  who  longs  to  help  those  that  need 
help;  go  to  Him  confidingly.  No  matter  how 
bad  you  are — the  worse  the  better.  Old  Martin 
Luther  said,  "I  bless  God  for  my  sins."  He 
would  never  have  had  such  a  sense  of  the  par- 
doning mercy  of  God,  if  he  had  not  himself  been 
sinful. 

A  CIVILIZING  GOSPEL. 

n^HERE  are  multitudes  of  mechanics  who  to- 
1      day  have  more  comforts  than  were  in  pal- 

183 


aces  in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  If  you 
call  to  mind  the  way  in  which  barons  used  to 
spread  their  tables  and  spend  their  lives,  you 
will  find  that  the  day  laborer  of  our  time  is  bet- 
ter off  than  they  were.  The  household  has  aug- 
mented itself  since  then.  It  requires  more  to 
make  a  good  father  and  a  good  husband  now 
than  it  did  then.  Men  are  so  much  larger  now, 
in  this  country,  that  an  American  household  to- 
day is  an  institution  to  compare  with  which, 
a  hundred  or  two  hundred,  a  thousand  or  two 
thousand,  years  ago,  there  was  nothing;  and  the 
foundations  of  it  are  not  shaken.  Some  folks 
think  when  the  night  cart  rolls  by  and  shakes 
the  house,  that  there  is  an  earthquake.  No;  and 
mud  carts  may  run  by  the  family,  and  shake  it  a 
little,  but  there  is  no  earthquake.  The  social 
power  in  the  family  ministered  by  the  affections, 
by  refined  taste,  by  ardent  loves,  by  joys  which 
have  their  pattern  and  equal  nowhere  else — it  is 
this  that  marks  the  civilizing  and  Christianizing 
influence  of  the  Gospel  in  our  day. 

LOVE,  GOD'S  VICEGERENT. 

LOVE  sits  as  God's  vicegerent  in  the  soul, 
and  I  will  not  fight  with  my  brethren. 
There  is  now  and  then  a  man  who  is  not  sus- 
ceptible to  love,  or  anything  else  that  is  good, 
and  I  deem  it  necessary  to  exterminate  vermin 
wherever  they  may  be  found;  but  I  will  love  all 
my  brethren  if  they  will  let  me. 

HYMNS. 

HYMNS  are  like  trumpet  calls  to  a  sleeping 
warrior,    which    wake   him  and    instantly 
bring  him  to  his  feet,  sword  in  hand. 

184 


AN  EXCUSE  FOR  INFIDELITY. 

WHEN  ministers,  and  elders,  and  members 
of  the  church,  instead  of  loving  each 
other,  are  seen  wrangling,  and  quarreling,  and 
railing  at  one  another;  when  they  exhibit  natures 
as  full  of  selfish  passions  as  a  sepulchre  is  of 
dust  and  vermin,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
scepticism  and  infidelity  are  rife  among  us. 

A  RELIGION  OF  VARNISH. 

THAT  miserable  varnish  which  men  stick  on 
the  outside,  and  call  it  religion;  that  mis- 
erable estimate  which  they  make  of  religion,  that 
chattering  of  prayers,  that  face-religion,  that 
Sunday-keeping  religion;  all  that  so-called  re- 
ligion which  is  but  an  external  covering  of  pride 
and  selfishness,  of  worldliness  and  vanity — the 
curse  and  wrath  of  God  abideth  upon  it.  No- 
where else  are  there  such  terrific  anathemas 
against  such  religion  as  those  which  fell  from 
the  lips  of  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  enough  to  make  a 
man  tremble,  to  give  a  man  the  chills  and  fever, 
to  walk  through  those  chapters  in  the  Bible 
where  Christ  preached  to  Tract  Society  men. 

USELESS  PREACHING. 

THE  preaching  of  many  men  is  like  children 
creeping  in  the  sand.  Their  sermons  con- 
tain pretty  things,  perhaps,  sweet  sentences,  but 
they  make  no  impression  upon  the  hearer. 
There  are  fifty-two  Sabbaths  in  the  year,  and 
the  order  of  the  church  has  been  that  there  shall 
be  two  sermons  preached  each  Sabbath — one  in 
the  morning,  and  one  in  the  afternoon — no  mat- 
ter whether  a  man  wants  to  preach  them  or  not 

185 


Many  men  preach  twice  each  Sunday  for  this 
reason,  and  no  other.  If  asked,  "What  do  you 
preach  for?"  they  say,  "Because  I  must."  "Why 
must  you?"  "Because  I  am  expected  to."  They 
do  not  preach  because  there  are  prevailing  errors 
to  be  overthrown;  not  because  there  are  bud- 
dings of  desire  to  be  expanded  into  blossoms; 
not  because  of  any  sympathy  they  feel  for  the 
erring  and  the  lost;  nor  because  they  feel,  "Woe 
is  me  if  I  preach  not  the  Gospel;"  but  they 
preach  because  it  is  Sunday,  and  they  have  got 
to  When  Sunday  comes  round,  such  a  preacher 
says  to  himself,  "What  under  the  sun  shall  I 
preach  about?"  and  the  people,  when  they  have 
heard  him,  say,  "  What  under  the  sun  did  he 
preach  about?  " 

HOW  CHILDREN  UNFOLD. 

OUR  children  unfold  slowly  and  the  lowest 
faculties  develop  first.  After  the  animal 
nature  has  got  a  start  then  the  portion  in  which 
the  affections  reside,  grows  next;  that  part  which 
opens  the  understanding,  grows  next;  and  that 
part  which  assimilates  the  child  to  spiritual  be- 
ings, grows  last.  There  is  some  comfort  in  this, 
when  you  see  how  like  little  witches  your  chil- 
dren act  sometimes.  You  think  they  are  cer- 
tainly bound  for  the  jail  or  the  gallows,  until 
there  comes  to  be  an  equilibration  between  the 
moral  feelings  and  the  lower  propensities. 

WISHING. 

\GREAT  many  people  think  that  a  wish   is 
a  resolution,  but  it's  gone  into  proverb  that 
"if  wishes  were  horses,  then  beggars  might  ride." 
A  man  wishes  he  was  rich;  but  he's  too  lazy,  he 

180 


never  will  be.  A  man  wishes  ho  knew  more; 
probably  never  will.  He's  lazy.  A  man  wishes 
he  could  have  influence  in  the  circles  in  which 
society  moves,  but  he  stops.  He  will  never  have 
wisdom  and  patience  to  do  it.  And  so  men 
stand  over  against  the  great  objects  in  life. 
Men  should  be  respected,  but  tl.ey  are  not  re- 
spected. They  wish  for  that  which  will  endure. 
That  would  be  a  purpose.  They  wish  the  thing 
without  taking  the  intermediate  step.  So  men 
are  fools  all  over  the  world.  Wishing,  wishing, 
wishing.  They  must  be  fools  when  they  believe 
that  wishing  is  some  sort  of  resolution  toward 
competency. 

RESOLUTION. 

RESOLUTION  means  a  purpose,  a  will  itself. 
And  it  includes  in  it  all  the  intermediate 
and  indispensable  intermediate  steps.  Some  res- 
olutions execute  themselves  immediately,  some 
with  some  delay,  some  with  long  delay,  some 
with  many  subordinate  resolutions  that  carry  out 
the  primary  one,  and  a  man  may  resolve  at  a 
critical  moment  that  wnich  will  determine  the 
whole  career  of  his  life;  yea,  and  determine  in 
anyone  single  final  moment  that  which  will  take 
the  whole  of  his  life  to  carry  into  effect.  When 
my  father  was  yet  a  lad  (he  was  brought  up  sub- 
stantially by  an  uncle)  he  had  in  him  all  that  was 
necessary  to  make  him  what  he  was  in  his  pro- 
fessional life,  but  he  didn't  know  it.  He  was 
careless,  he  was  heedless,  he  was  very  good  ex- 
ternally, and  so  his  uncle,  going  out  one  morn- 
ing, found  that  he  was  out  late  with  the  horse 
the  night  before  visiting  some  young  companion. 
The  bridle  was  thrown  there  on  the  barn  floor, 
and  the  horse  turned  in  without  a  halter.  He 

187 


said:  "Oh,  well,  Ly man  will  never  make  a  far- 
mer;" and  so,  talking  in  the  orchard  with  him 
one  day,  he  says:  "  Lyman,  how  would  you  like 
to  go  to  college?"  No  answer.  They  went  on 
working  all  day.  The  next  day,  about  the  same 
hour,  as  they  worked  together  in  the  orchard, 
Lyman  said:  ''  I  should  like  to  go,  sir."  That 
settled  it.  And  in  that  liking  to  go  there  was  a 
purpose  that  shaped  differently  his  whole  life. 
It  never  gave  out;  it  branched  in  every  direc- 
tion, bore  fruit,  and  finally  made  him  what  he 
was.  That  was  the  starting  point.  He  made  a 
tolerably  good  minister  and  a  tolerably  good 
father. 

VALUE  OF  SUFFERING. 

THE  greatest  achievements  of  life  have  been 
made  by  those  that  were  sufferers.  When 
the  Huguenots,  the  Vaudois,  and  the  various 
European  nations  that  suffered  under  persecu- 
tions in  the  wilderness,  in  the  mountains, . and  in 
caves,  were  driven  out,  they  were  unknown,  they 
were  of  little  influence,  they  were  the  poor  of 
the  earth,  they  were  looked  down  upon  by 
princes,  by  priests,  and  by  arch-priests,  they  were 
regarded  as  rubbish;  for  their  faith's  sake  they 
suffered  loss  of  property,  loss  of  home,  loss  of 
their  own  kindred,  and  were  subjected  to  every 
strait  and  stress  of  affliction,  and  they  became 
heroes;  and  to-day  our  children  read  their  his- 
tory; they  are  living  still;  and  with  an  invisible 
influence  they  are  lifting  up  men's  thoughts  to 
higher  spheres  and  to  nobler  patience  and  en- 
deavor. If  you  go  back  to  the  names  that  are 
still  above  the  horizon,  there  is  scarcely  one  of 
them  that  has  not  had  this  elevation  by  reason  of 
his  conduct  as  a  sufferer. 

188 


POORLY  FURNISHED  WITHIN. 

ONE  may  be  free  from  all  vices  and  from 
great  sins,  and  yet  break  God's  whole  law. 
That  law  is  love.  Many  say  to  themselves, 
"What  wrong  do  I  do?"  The  question  is,  What 
right  do  you  do?  An  empty  grape-vine  might 
say,  "Why,  what  harm  do  I  do?"  Yes,  but 
what  clusters  do  you  produce?  Vitality  should 
be  fruitful.  Men  are  content  if  they  can  eat, 
and  drink,  and  be  clothed,  and  keep  warm,  and 
go  on  thus  from  year  to  year;  because  they  say, 
"  I  cheat  no  one,  I  do  not  lie  or  steal,  nor  am  I 
drunk.  I  pay  my  debts,  and  what  lack  I  yet?  " 
A  man  that  can  only  do  that  is  very  poorly  fur- 
nished within.  And  in  no  land  in  the  world  are 
men  so  culpable  who  stand  still  as  in  this  land 
of  Christian  light  and  privileges. 

SLANDER. 

YOU  cannot  indulge  in  badinage,  you  cannot 
retail  all  manner  of  stories,  and  not  hurt 
and  wound  somebody.  It  is  a  shame  that  you, 
who  profess  to  suffer  like  the  Master  rather  than 
create  suffering,  should  go  about,  wholesale  and 
retail,  with  all  manner  of  devil's  stories.  You 
think  these  are  peccadilloes.  Yes,  they  are  just 
the  kind  of  peccadilloes  that  carry  men  to  hell! 

Do  not  listen  to  these  things.  You  would  not 
allow  any  person  to  come  into  your  house  and 
sit  down  with  your  children  and  yourself  and 
tell  slanderous  stories.  You  would  not  permit 
to  be  read  at  your  fireside,  with  your  innocent 
daughters  listening  around,  many  of  the  vile 
scandals  that  are  published.  You  would  oust 
the  man  that  should  attempt  to  r.ead  them  there, 
and  would  burn  the  paper  that  contained  them. 

189 


You  ought  nut  to  permit  anybody  to  violate  this 
law  of  peace,  purity,  love,  and  kindness  in  your 
presence.  If  men  would  refuse  to  hear  these 
things,  and  would  rebuke  them  by  their  silence 
and  their  attitude,  there  would  be  much  fewer 
tale-bearers. 

\VHOI.ESOMK  MIKT1I. 

EVERY  man  ought  to  have  more  imagination 
every  year  than  he  has  had;  that  is,  it  ought 
to  be  fed,  made  sensitive,  made  useful.  Every 
man  that  has  given  to  him  the  gift  of  wit  and 
humor,  instead  of  letting  that  spring  run  out  and 
run  dry  because  he  is  a  Christian,  should  not  so 
totally  misapprehend  it.  In  this  world  where 
there  is  so  much  drudgery,  where  there  are  so 
many  tears  and  so  many  clouds,  blessed  is  he 
that  knows  how  to  put  a  rainbow  on  the  clouds. 
]51essed«is  that  man  who  knows  how  to  make  his 
hours  cheerful.  Of  all  things  that  tend  to  expel 
the  curmudgeons  of  care,  and  the  mean  devils 
that  afflict  men,  I  do  not  know  of  any  like  whole- 
some mirth.  I  know  that  it  is  not  puritanical. 
The  Puritans  had  another  thing  to  attend  to. 
That  was  not  their  particular  calling.  Since  by 
reaction  this  had  been  dissipated  and  carried  to 
an  undue  extent,  and  to  impure  methods,  they 
rebounded  from  it.  But  I  look  upon  the  higher 
qualities  of  hopefulness,  mirthfulness,  humor,  all 
good-fellowship,  as  being  of  transcendent  value 
in  the  Christian  life. 

RIGHT  TOWARD  THE  GOSPEL. 

SOME  men  are  preaching,  in  their  rawest  way, 
the  old  doctrines  of   punishment.     Multi- 
tudes of  men  are  preaching  the  doctrine   of   a 

190 


future  retribution  in  those  forms  and  similitudes 
and  figures  that  were  necessary  to  wake  up  the 
low  and  animal  appetites  of  men  Many  a  man 
is  preaching  to  men  as  if  they  were  asses,  oxen, 
wild  steeds  to  be  managed  by  whip,  spur,  harness 
or  what  not.  Over  against  them  come  the  men 
of  sentiment  and  poetry,  who  denounce  this 
stormy  preaching  of  hell  and  damnation,  and 
preach  of  tilings  airy  and  beautiful  and  weak. 
Then  there  is  the  rigorous  orthodox,  who  derides 
the  sentimentalists;  and  the  sentimentalists  want 
nothing  to  do  with  the  vulgar  orthodox.  So 
there  is  a  territory  between  the  upper  and  the 
lower  that  is  not  yet  well  denned,  nor  at  all  well 
understood.  The  Christian  moral  consciousness 
revolts  against  the  old  material,  barbaric,  dra- 
matic representations  of  terror-inspiring  fear; 
and  folks  think  it  is  going  away  from  the  Gos- 
pel. I  say  it  is  going  right  toward  the  Gospel. 
It  is  thought  to  be  a  decadence  of  power.  It  is 
the  luminousness  of  a  higher  power.  It  changes 
the  method  of  address;  and  revivalists  find  that 
their  instruments  are  dropping  out  of  their 
hands;  but  if  they  only  knew  it,  there  are  better 
instruments  for  their  use. 

YOUNG  LOVE. 

ALL  strong  emotion  is  evanescent;  and  if  it 
cannot  commute  itself  into  some  permanent 
form  it  speedily  runs  out.  In  the  beginning  love 
— the  largest,  the  most  effluent,  the  noblest  of 
all  the  mind  s  emotions — rises  and  flames  and 
pours  itself  abroad.  Then  it  is  that  men  see 
angels.  Then  it  is  that  man  feels  ecstasies.  But 
the  years  flow  on,  with  cares,  and  sorrows,  and 
multiplied  labor  and  infirmity;  and  the  old  hus- 
band looks  into  the  homely  brown  face  of  the 


wife,  and  is  there  any  great  lifting  up  of  the 
horizon  ?  Not  at  all.  Then  has  love  been 
strangled  by  duty?  Is  there  none?  There  never 
was  so  much;  but  it  has  been  commuted.  It  has 
changed  Irom  an  emotion  into  an  action,  into  a 
habit,  into  a  will-power. 

Talk  about  young  love!  One  could  desire  to 
be  young  again,  unless  he  had  loved  when  he 
was  old,  for  the  brightness  and  the  beauty  of  the 
early  feeling;  but  ah!  there  is  no  such  depth,  no 
such  width,  no  such  treasure,  as  in  those  later 
years,  when  every  thought,  every  feeling  springs 
out  of  that  latent  love  quality,  which,  uniting 
men  once,  unites  them  forever  and  forever. 


193 


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